Zion and Bryce Canyon in peak summer season

[willigetit]

Hello

We are planning to drive Model 3 LR from Los Angeles to Zion to Bryce . I have looked at the superchargers
- St. George supercharger
- Cedar City supercharger

I am planning to book one of the hotels with Telsa destination chargers . My worry is that it being the peak season (summer time) , either the destination chargers might be IC'ed or there might be too many Tesla's

Anyone been to Zion and Bryce around June can let me know their charging experience . Should i be worried ?

Thank you for your time

 

[tharasix]

I'll be watching this thread too, as I'm planning on going to Bryce in August. I already have a reservation at Ruby's Inn, and I'm hoping to be able to use the chargers there. I'm not seeing too many complaints of ICEing on Plugshare at Ruby's Inn.

 

[PLUS EV]

If you're worried about HPWCs being ICEd, just call ahead on the day of your arrival and ask them to block one of the spots for you. I've had places put a cone in the spot for me to be sure no one ICEs it. Even if they don't have a cone, an employee could park their car there to block the spot (just be sure it's an employee who will be there when you check in!).

From a practical standpoint, hotel parking lots are typically quite empty during the afternoon, so if you arrive then, you should be fine. It's the late night arrivals that you have to worry about.

 

[Barry]

I stayed at Zion Lodge several years ago. The L2 chargers were a good distance away in a large lot, so unlikely to be ICEd

 

[smartypnz]

Most hotels I have used will ask the ICE to relocate. (Based on Lic plate ID)

 

[gsteele]

We stayed at the Bryce Canyon Inn in Tropic, and we were there the week before the 4th of July last year (2020). There were two Teslas the first night but only one the second. As usual, I left my cell phone number on my dash in case a third showed up late at night.

 

[bxr140]

Should i be worried ?

TLDR, no.

Few thoughts:
--Don't limit yourself to Tesla charging solutions. You can certainly base your primary plan on superchargers and HPWCs, but there are plenty of L2 options as well as backups. If you're staying in Springdale, for instance, your hotel might have an in-use HPWC but a hotel down the street might have an open L2.
--Form an anxiety perspective its not a bad idea to big-charge at superchargers, even if that means you're only hotel charging for a few hours...like, if you're staying in Springdale, its still a good idea to 95% charge in St George on the way in. That way you know that if you can't get a charge at a hotel that night you'll still be good to get to Bryce the next day and then hopefully you can get a hotel charge when you get back (if that's your itinerary), and you'll certainly have enough to bail out to Cedar City.
--RV parks are a plentiful worst case solution, so even if you end up wasting a few hours to get enough to limp to a supercharger or hotel charge, its not like you're going to be totally up the creek.
--A few years ago we did a heat-of-August leg in our M3 that started with a near full charge at the *sugar*-show Beaver Supercharger-->Over to 89 down to the Zion East entrance-->Hotel in Virgin that night (Without charging)-->Back to Zion the next day (including a drive up through the tunnel and back)-->Back to St George supercharger (the dumb one on the other side of town, before they opened the new one on I-15). Googs says that was the better part of 240-250 miles and at no point was I worried that I wasn't going to make it. Don't recall the final RM usage.

 

[Matsayz]

So I was just out at the Zion area this weekend. We stayed at an Airbnb in La Verkin that only had a 120v and we had some long days so that didn’t help much. There are some Tesla Wall Connectors (HPWC) in La Verkin though, I used one at the Best Western (3 of them there) for free, 10kW.

When we went towards Zion we stopped and walked Springdale prior so I parked at another Best Western and used their J1772 (2 of those) also free, pulled about 7kW for a bit.

In Zion at the Visitor Center there’s two J1772, free as well. There was an X and a jackass Mercedes EV/hybrid something another that was just using it to park. I asked if the dude was going to charge and he just waved at me... we saw him later just walking the trails, like I said, jackass.

All in all, get as much juice as you can at St. George’s V2 SuperChargers then head into Zion area. The Supercharger site has 8 or 10 V2’s then two Urban Chargers on the other side of the dumpster. There’s also the Urban Chargers near the convention center in St George but there was on 4 of those I think and a few cars lined up... it’s closer to the highway but less power, just check the screen for vacancies

Highly recommend the PlugShare app and bring your 120v adapter along with your J1772 adapter. Have fun!

 

[dgpcolorado]

Those willing to camp can snag one of 95 campsites with RV pedestals in the Watchman Campground, adjacent to the Visitors Center and shuttle bus station parking area. (Watchman Campground, Zion National Park - Recreation.gov) Requires a TT-30 adapter (available from EVSEadapters.com). TT-30 is a bit slow, 120 volts x 24 amps = 2.88 kW, but that's twice as fast as a standard wall plug and it will give a decent charge overnight.

Plug your car in at your campsite then walk to the shuttle bus station to explore the park. Shuttle buses run from March 13th until Fall; private cars are not allowed in Zion Canyon when shuttle buses are in service.

^ Charging on TT-30 at Watchman Campground in Zion NP.

^ View of Zion Canyon.

 

[Ken_Y]

^bump.

Gonna do this trip in a few weeks. Wanna see if anyone has recently been up here and can provide some reports.

 

[tharasix]

I'm going to be in Bryce on the 21st and 22nd. Whoever gets there first can report for the other!

 

[Ken_Y]

I'm going to be in Bryce on the 21st and 22nd. Whoever gets there first can report for the other!

I didn't go to Bryce but was at Zion for 3 days. Coming from LA, I had to stop at Yermo, did a quick top up at Baker and stayed over night at LV. Aria's main valet had a destination charger so that was useful. The valet parked and charged for me. Pretty neat. From there, did a stop at St. George SC at Buff street. I skipped the 72kw urban chargers at the St. George Convention center as they only had 4 chargers and 1 was out. I arrived at Zion with 50% SoC. My hotel had 2 Tesla destination chargers and 1 other EV charger. Didn't bother to look up what it was but a plug in Prius occupied the spot.

Returning home, we did it in one shot from Zion to LA. I had to stop 4 times but probably could've gotten by with just 2. I topped up at St. George Convention center for 10 min and also at Baker for 10 min.

The only downside of the trip was that it was extremely hot hitting 119F on both trips. I was losing estimated SoC at arrival at a rate of 1% every 10 miles or so. It was enough to get me to top up at St. George and Baker. Hindsight, I should've been ok but would likely arrive at Vegas and Yermo with under 10% SoC. If I ran into any traffic, it would be problematic.

Also, check the weather. When I left on Sunday, Zion was covered with smoke. Not sure how the fires will impact Bryce when you go but it'll be good to keep an eye on that.

 

[tharasix]

We got to Glacier yesterday as a huge cold front was blowing through, which cleared all the smoke for us. On a boat tour today, the captain said that the park has been covered in smoke for the last four weeks or so. We got really lucky.

 

[PLUS EV]

I didn't go to Bryce but was at Zion for 3 days. Coming from LA, I had to stop at Yermo, did a quick top up at Baker and stayed over night at LV. Aria's main valet had a destination charger so that was useful. The valet parked and charged for me. Pretty neat. From there, did a stop at St. George SC at Buff street. I skipped the 72kw urban chargers at the St. George Convention center as they only had 4 chargers and 1 was out. I arrived at Zion with 50% SoC. My hotel had 2 Tesla destination chargers and 1 other EV charger. Didn't bother to look up what it was but a plug in Prius occupied the spot.

Returning home, we did it in one shot from Zion to LA. I had to stop 4 times but probably could've gotten by with just 2. I topped up at St. George Convention center for 10 min and also at Baker for 10 min.

The only downside of the trip was that it was extremely hot hitting 119F on both trips. I was losing estimated SoC at arrival at a rate of 1% every 10 miles or so. It was enough to get me to top up at St. George and Baker. Hindsight, I should've been ok but would likely arrive at Vegas and Yermo with under 10% SoC. If I ran into any traffic, it would be problematic.

Also, check the weather. When I left on Sunday, Zion was covered with smoke. Not sure how the fires will impact Bryce when you go but it'll be good to keep an eye on that.

If you were dropping percentage points that quickly, my guess is you were driving very fast and/or facing a headwind. Don't think a/c costs you that much even at those extreme temps (I've driven in those temps a lot).

Also, the other problem with arriving at Baker with a low percentage in that direction is that you will hit an even lower percentage at Halloran Summit a few miles east of Baker. You gain a net of about 1% battery from regen over the next few miles before getting to the Baker supercharger.

 

[Ken_Y]

If you were dropping percentage points that quickly, my guess is you were driving very fast and/or facing a headwind. Don't think a/c costs you that much even at those extreme temps (I've driven in those temps a lot).

Also, the other problem with arriving at Baker with a low percentage in that direction is that you will hit an even lower percentage at Halloran Summit a few miles east of Baker. You gain a net of about 1% battery from regen over the next few miles before getting to the Baker supercharger.

I wasn't speeding. I was at or under 75mph. It could be headwind. When going from LV towards Yermo, I was driving close to 72mph and was still losing estimated SoC. I wasn't comfortable going under speed limit so I topped up at Baker. Weird thing is after charging up to about 80% at Yermo, I had no issues going 80mph+ the rest of the way to LA even though the temperature was about the same. Maybe a few degrees cooler. I suspect it is either the trip data considered slower traffic within LA proper or the battery had more capacity to work with? Not sure.

 

[tharasix]

My stay at Bryce was pretty great. Stayed at Ruby's Inn. One of the Deer Lodge chargers was off, but the other worked fine. Both Ponderosa chargers were there usual slow and reliable. I didn't have a problem finding a charger when I needed it. We took the shuttle into the park during the peak hours, and were able to find parking at other times. We also managed to win the lottery to participate in the Full Moon Hike. The only bummer is that the monsoons were so bad in the weeks prior that the trail to Wall Street was totally washed out and closed.