FAQs

Creating True North here in Zion National Park was a dream of Mariangela’s that she had during her undergraduate years with a dear friend who died of AIDS years ago. Her dream was to design and build a sanctuary where guests could come and “unplug” from the tethers of their lives and Connect with their True North through an intimate experience with the natural beauty of Zion. 

Zion Villa True North was originally built over 19 years ago as a retreat center where guests are invited to connect with nature, meditate, create art, compose music, write books, enjoy yoga, music, movement, and more in an intimate setting. Therefore, the bedrooms are intentionally designed to be small yet beautiful with the emphasis on the community space in the villa’s main living room. Zion Villa’s guests range from one person reservations to honeymooning couples, birthday parties, family reunions, corporate team building, yoga retreats, artist escapes, and small weddings. 

As a result of being located within Zion National Park, it was necessary to design a fairly sophisticated and comprehensive off the grid facility with tracking solar panels, automatic computerized generator back-up, well and water filtration systems, satellite internet and TV, and more.  Due to the nature of True North’s unique location, Hank and his wife Mariangela live on the property to not only enjoy Zion regularly, but also to maintain those systems and to be present for our guests. Their home dwelling is separate but attached to the villa. Since they are on the property, they are available should you have any questions during your stay, while also respecting the privacy of all guests and visitors. 

We ask guests to check in after 4:00pm, and depart by 10:30am when they check out in consideration of our cleaning team to be able to clean and prepare the villa and rooms. If there are any extenuating circumstances, please contact Hank directly at 435-668-8456.

If an early check-in or late checkout is desired, please contact us several days prior to your arrival to obtain formal permission. We will do their best to accommodate your requests.

Early Check In: If you have obtained permission for an early arrival, please note; Our cleaning crew will start right away at 10:30am and be completed with preparing the villa for you by 4pm. However, since they can complete the kitchen first, please feel invited to come and place things in the refrigerator as well as enjoy the grounds any time after 12:30pm.

Should you choose to arrive early, there are many things to do nearby while you wait for the cleaning crew: There are many caves and hikes to explore and enjoy right from the property. Therefore, please call when you know when you will be arriving, so that, if desired and possible, they can coordinate meeting you at the villa to orient you to the property as well as give you directions to the nearby caves and hiking trails.  

Late Checkout: This will depend on the scheduled arrival time of the cleaning crew. We will let you know what is possible and as always, do our best to accommodate your requests.

We do not book single rooms at this time (Spring/Summer 2024). Reservations include our entire Villa that can sleep up to 12 people in 5 bedrooms.

We always welcome our guests to choose whatever dates are available and trust as the puzzle pieces of the calendar unfold. When there is a ‘one night gap,’ we offer it to the preceding and succeeding guests at a discounted rate of $150 off for that extra night stay.

Due to the nature of our unique off-grid property located inside the park, there is a balance of beautiful seclusion and a very special experience of Zion that comes along with our fees that doesn’t allow for discounts for regular bookings. 

Our sophisticated off grid facility harnesses its own sources of power, water, cellular and internet services. All of which require much more expensive support and maintenance than a normal vacation rental. Since there are no utility lines near our property, internet and wifi is extremely expensive to provide and maintain. All of our systems are monitored and maintained both onsite as well  as remotely by technicians that custom designed and built our infrastructure.

An additional consideration of being an “off the beaten path” facility is that our cleaning crew must travel some distance to us and devote an entire day to prepare the villa as best as possible to create an environment that is clean and tidy for our guests. The cleaning team also launders off site utilizing a unique sanitization process.  Therefore, we pay our cleaning crew a fixed fee regardless of the time it takes them to clean, and our actual cost to clean the Villa for each transition always ends up more than the cleaning fee we charge our guests.

Most of our guests fly into the Las Vegas airport as it has the most variety of flights and affordable car rentals and shuttles (Visit Saint George Shuttle to check Schedule and Availability to Book). Vegas is about a 2 hour 45 minute drive to our location. 

You could also fly into the Saint George Airport which is about an hour drive to our location but has fewer direct flights. Saint George Airport also offers car rentals. Saint George is about a 1 hour drive to our location.

From Las Vegas and/or Saint George take I-15 North to Exit 16 (State Route 9 East) towards La Verkin, Utah. Stay on Route 9 to reach Virgin, Utah 

From Salt Lake City, Utah take I-15 South to Exit 27 (State Route 17 South) for 20 miles, then take a Left onto State Route 9 East in La Verkin, Utah. Stay on State Route 9 East to get to Virgin. 

From Arizona and/or the Grand Canyon, for the most amazing and picturesque approach/entrance to Zion, you might consider traveling from Arizona to Kanab UT, then up the 89 to Mount Carmel Junction then take Route 9 to Springdale,  and head towards Virgin.

From Virgin, please follow these directions to Zion Villa True North:

Directions from Virgin (20 minutes): From Hwy 9 in Virgin, toward the East end of the town of Virgin (right across the street from the Marriott Fairfield Inn) turn North (left if you’re coming from Hurricane/La Verkin, and right if you’re coming from Springdale) onto Kolob Terrace Road.

Travel approximately 9.5 miles (just past the 9 mile road marker), to the main entrance gate. More specific directions will be communicated with you prior to your arrival.

If you are traveling through or from Las Vegas, you may consider shopping for provisions there at Traders Joe’s and or Whole Foods Market.

Many of our guests buy their groceries on route in St. George (which is about an hour from our property) at Costco and/or Harmons Grocery Store (Utah’s Whole Foods equivalent). 

Costco is located at 835 N 3050 E, St. George, UT 84790.

Harmon’s is located at 1189 E 700 South, St. George, UT 84790 

There is also a grocery store that is 20 minutes away called Davis’ Market in the small town of La Verkin.

Our well water is wonderful and safe and goes through two filtration processes, however, it does have a mineral taste. Therefore, we personally use and advise our guests to buy bottled water for drinking purposes. Due to being an off the grid facility, we ask guests to note that we do not have a microwave in our kitchen.

Lee’s Discount Liquor, located in Mesquite Nevada (between Las Vegas and St. George).

Switchback Liquor located in Springdale, right outside of the Zion National Park south entrance. 

DABS Utah State Liquor store, located in Hurricane (between Saint George and Zion Villa True North) 

* You may want to include some ice in your purchase as we provide two large ice chests for you to use for your drinks. Many guests like to do this as it gives maximum room in the refrigerator for food items.

River Rock Roasters is a popular destination that offers coffee, tea, pizza, burgers and sandwiches, and draft beer with beautiful views over the canyon in Hurricane/La Verkin. 

Balcony One for live music, cocktails, and mexican-american fare located at the base of Kolob Terrace Road in Virgin. 

Deep Creek Coffee Co. is a very popular coffee and breakfast location in Springdale. 

Oscar’s Restaurant for family friendly dining. 

Red Fort for Indian food in La Verkin. 

Thai Sapa for Asian food in Springdale. 

Whip Tail Grill, Bit & Spur, Oscar’s, Switchback Grill, and Porter’s Steakhouse all offer family friendly dining in Springdale, just outside the main entrance to Zion National Park.

We enjoy hosting our guests all year round who are visiting Zion National Park. Although our property is located in and surrounded by Zion, we are in a high elevation area of Zion at 5800 feet allowing our temperatures to often be 10-15 degrees cooler than the lower elevations of Zion around Springdale. There is a beautiful lake, Kolob Reservoir, located 25 minutes up the road at 8000 feet and is typically another 10 degrees cooler than True North.

Weather.com provides a 10- day as well as an hourly forecast for Virgin, Utah (the small town that is at the base of our mountain). 

The temperature at our location is typically around 10 degrees cooler than that of Virgin. 

We also use the weather forecast in Cedar City, Utah as it is closer to our elevation and sometimes general weather than Virgin, we are typically warmer and have less snowfall than Cedar City, but using both Virgin and Cedar City helps us to get a more accurate forecast.

The road to our property that passes through the park was recently upgraded with over $20 million in improvements from ZNP. The county maintains Kolob Terrace well, and they are typically very responsive in snow removal along the road.

For our guests that book during the Winter months and rent a vehicle, we suggest renting a vehicle with 4-wheel drive. We recommend they do that as the safest means of travel when the roads get wet and possibly icy (especially on the North facing turns that get the least amount of sun) or when we are expecting snow.

We have been in Zion for over 19 years and  would be happy to help you with some special hikes near our property you might like to experience. 

The following is our favorite site/guide about the hiking trails around our property along Kolob Terrace Road in Zion:

Check out this excellent Hiking Guide for navigating around our property and the park!

The Narrows: The outfitting, canyoneering, ebike, & private shuttle company that many of our guests have enjoyed for information and rentals for The Narrows is Zion Guru. – Visit https://www.zionguru.com or Call  (435) 632-0432. 

Angel’s Landing : Permits are now required to hike Angel’s Landing. You can Learn More and enter the lottery for a permit on the NPS website here. 

Horseback Riding : There are several good wranglers in the Zion area. We recommend either Bill Wright (435) 231-2008‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬,  Canyon Trail Rides , or  Zion Canyon Trail Ride at Jacobs Ranch. 

There are also 3 lakes near True North  (the nearest is Kolob Reservoir): 

Kolob Reservoir – (we are 7 miles from the snow gate, and 14 from the reservoir) 

https://www.visitutah.com/things-to-do/fishing/paradise/fishing-kolob-reservoir/

Sand Hollow – 

https://stateparks.utah.gov/parks/sand-hollow/

Quail Lake –

https://stateparks.utah.gov/parks/quail-creek/ 

ATV/WaveRunner Rentals – 

https://southernutahadventurecenter.com/ (ATV’s are delivered to the True North property)

Fishing at Kolob Reservoir: There’s a wonderful fishing shop called Kolob Market that should be able to answer most of your questions about Kolob Reservoir fishing. Their number is (435) 712-3474.‬‬‬‬ ‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬

Unfortunately, the villa does not have a washing machine for our guests to do their laundry. 

There are, however, a few local options:

1. There is a laundry service available to you provided by our cleaning crew. If you like, they will pick-up your laundry and return (most often the next day). Their pick-up/delivery charge is $50 plus time and coin charge for doing the laundry.
2. There is also a small laundromat at the base of our mountain located at the Zion River Resort RV park.
3. There is a large laundromat in Hurricane about 25 minutes away from the Villa with recently installed new machines and free wifi called Hurricane Laundromat and Storage.
4. The Hurricane Laundromat also provides a drop off and pick up service so that you may play and explore while your items are washed for you.

We understand, now more than ever, how all of our pets are contributing to our sanity and have become even more essential. If you wish to bring your pup, please note there is a $25/day fee, along with written approval needed from True North.   

We love dogs and have two ourselves that live with us on the property. They both (a Chocolate lab and a Golden Retriever) just turned 2 years old in January, 2024.  We always keep them close to us so that they never bother any of our guests. They are very much a part of our family, and we take them with us wherever we go. We also have two friendly indoor/outdoor cats that frequently roam the property keeping the mouse population at bay.  

Due to the possible interactions of your pets with ours, we do not allow no aggressive dogs. We also ask that your dog is in the care and company of a human while outside on the property. 

Also, it is important to note that dogs are not allowed on Zion National Park trails, with the exception of the Pa’rus Trail.  However, we can show you areas that you can enjoy walking with your dogs on or off leash on BLM land that is nearby and adjacent to Zion National Park as well as connect you with a dog sitter (should you desire one), and/or a nearby dog day care facility. 

We and many of our guests have loved taking our dogs to Zion Canyon Canine for daytime dog care. The following is the link to their website: https://zioncanyoncanine.com/

We have had quite a lot of events, gatherings, weddings, etc. at our place in Zion over the years. Since we have a rather sophisticated off the grid facility and desire a more intimate and harmonious use of the property, we have evolved our policies to reflect this. Therefore, we no longer allow the use of the property for more than 12 guests total. If the number of total guests for the wedding you are planning exceeds that, we apologize, but we will not be able to accommodate your request. 

Should you or any of your guests desire to stay at our place while hosting the event somewhere else in Zion, please let us know. There are several other places in Zion that allow weddings of over 12 people that we can recommend.

Our property offers a  WiFi system linked to cellular service via a series of antennas and network extenders with two routers to choose from, as well as a Starlink satellite. There is also a telephone in the kitchen of the Villa that we provide for our guests, with unlimited domestic minutes, that is hard wired to one of the antennas for the best voice quality.

Our sophisticated off grid facility harnesses its own sources of power, water, cellular and internet services. All of our systems are monitored and maintained both onsite as well as remotely by technicians that custom designed and built our infrastructure. Our well water is wonderful and safe and goes through two filtration processes, however, it does have a mineral taste. Therefore, we personally use and advise our guests to buy bottled water for drinking purposes.

Fire extinguisher can be found in kitchen of the Villa 

First Aid kit can be found in the pantry 

Hurricane Fire Department: (435) 635-9562

La Verkin Police Dispatch: (435) 634-5730

Zion National Park Emergency Dispatch: (435) 772-0178

Hurricane Valley InstaCare (Open 8am -7pm): (435) 635-6550

St. George Regional Hospital on River Road (Open 24 hours): (435) 251-1000

For all Dispatch Personnel and  Emergency Responders let them know you are at True North, on Kolob Terrace Road between mile markers 9 and 10. Depending on the nature of the emergency they may suggest you drive down to Virgin to meet them. Zion National Park also has an emergency helicopter that lands in what they call the Cinder Pit that is about ½ mile up the road from True North/Zion Villa.