Zion National Park

Geography

The 8726 foot (2660 m) summit of Horse Ranch Mountain () is the highest point in the park; the lowest point is the 3666 foot (1128 m) elevation of Coal Pits Wash, creating a relief of about 5100 feet (1500 m).

Streams in the area follow rectangular paths because they follow jointing planes in the rocks. The headwaters of the Virgin River are at about 9000 feet (2700 m) and it empties into Lake Mead 200 miles (320 km) southeast after flowing 8000 feet (2400 m) downward. This gives the Virgin a stream gradient that ranges from 50 to 80 feet per mile (9 to 15 m/km)—one of the steepest stream gradients in North America.

Spring weather is very unpredictable with stormy, wet days being common, but warm, sunny weather may also occur. Precipitation peaks in March and spring wildflowers bloom from April through June, peaking in May. Fall days are usually clear and mild; nights are often cool. Summer days are hot (95 to 110 °F; 35 to 43 °C), but overnight lows are usually comfortable (65 to 70 °F; 18 to 21 °C). Afternoon thunderstorms are common from mid-July through mid-September. Storms may produce waterfalls as well as flash floods. Fall days are usually clear and mild; nights are often cool. Autumn tree-color displays begin in September in the high country; inside Zion Canyon, autumn colors usually peak in late October. Winter in Zion Canyon is fairly mild. Winter storms bring rain or light snow to Zion Canyon, but heavier snow to the higher elevations. Clear days may become quite warm, reaching 60 °F (16 °C); nights are often 20 to 40 °F (-7 to 4 °C). Winter storms can last several days and cause roads to be icy. Zion roads are plowed, except the Kolob Terrace Road, which is closed in winter. Winter driving conditions persist from November through March.

Human history

Archaic period

By about 300, some of the archaic groups developed into an early branch of seminomadic Anasazi, the Basketmakers. Basketmaker sites often have grass- or stone-lined storage cists and shallow, partially underground dwellings, called pithouses. They were hunters and gathers who supplemented their diet with limited agriculture. Locally collected pine nuts were important for food and trade.

Formative period

The Parowan Fremont lived in the north part of what now is the park. There is little evidence to suggest any long-term relationship between the two groups, even though they lived similar lives. They do, however, appear to have interacted along cultural contact zones, such as the Kolob Plateau, during the last years of the Formative period. Parowan Fremont sites are found along stream courses and near springs. They cultivated a variety of corn, Fremont Dent, tolerant of drought and cold and that could be successfully grown at higher elevations.

Both cultures grew maize and squash, which were stored for the winter months, and both lived in small groups. A sedentary lifestyle for both cultures encouraged the production of plain and painted ceramic vessels. The Fremont and the Anasazi both left the area around 1200 to 1300 for unknown reasons. Extended droughts in the 11th and 12th centuries interspersed with catastrophic flooding might have made horticulture impossible in this arid region. Competition from mobile Numic-speaking peoples (such as the Paiute and Ute), who moved into the region by at least 1100, might also be a cause.

Neo-Archaic period

Evidence suggests that the Parrusits had great reverence for the large monoliths and turbulent waters in Zion Canyon. They also believed that they were responsible for the streams and springs they depended upon by communicating with the rockss, animals, water, and plants that make their home there. Modern bands of Southern Paiute still visit sites within the park to perform rituals and collect plants.

Historic period

Early exploration

Captain John C. Fremont wrote about his 1844 journeys in the region. During the next century, American fur trappers and government surveyors added new overland travel routes across the region.

Mormon pioneers and the Powell expedition

By 1858, they had expanded 75 miles (120 km) up the Virgin River and into the immediate Zion Canyon area, which was still virtually unknown and unexplored by whites. That year, a Southern Paiute guide led a young Mormon missionary and translator named Nephi Johnson into Zion Canyon. Johnson wrote a favorable report about the agricultural potential of the canyon floor and, by 1861, Mormon pioneer Joseph Black became the first white man to build a cabin and farm in the canyon. His stories about the Canyon were at first seen as exaggerated, prompting his neighbors to call the Canyon "Joseph's Glory." Interest in the area remained low until several farming families founded Springdale, Utah in 1862, just outside the mouth of Zion Canyon.

Other pioneers followed, including Issac Behunin, who farmed tobacco, sugar cane, and fruit trees. He lived in a cabin that he built in 1863 near what is now the site of Zion Lodge. The naming of Zion Canyon, a reference to a peaceful place mentioned in the Bible, is attributed to Behunin. Catastrophic flooding by the river (especially in the Great Flood of 1861-1862), little arable land, and poor soils made agriculture in the upper Virgin River a risky venture.

More settlers moved into the canyon and improved its ability to serve their needs. Cattle and other domesticated animals, however, pushed out wild game and depleted native grasses. This made conditions worse for the Parrusits still living in the area (whose numbers had been greatly reduced by disease and slavery under the Spanish in the 18th century). In time, their numbers decreased to almost zero as the remaining inhabitants migrated to less-crowded lands south and cultural assimilation. The canyon was farmed until it was protected in 1909.

The John Wesley Powell expedition entered the area in 1869 after their first trip through the Grand Canyon. Powell and geologist Grove Karl Gilbert explored Zion Canyon in 1872 and named it Mukuntuweap under the impression that was the Paiute name for the canyon. Powell Survey photographers, Jack Hillers and James Fennemore, first visited the Zion Canyon and Kolob Plateau region in the spring of 1872. Hillers returned in April of 1873 to add more photographs to the "Virgin River Series" of photographs and stereographs. Hillers described wading the canyon for 4 days and nearly freezing to death from the cold and exposure to take his photographs. Fellow geologist Clarence Dutton later mapped the region and artist William H. Holmes documented the scenery.

Protection and tourism

Travel to the area before it was made into a national park was rare due to its remote location, lack of accommodations, and the absence of real roads in that part of Utah. For a long time, the only road to Zion Canyon was a dirt track that followed the Virgin River to Springdale from the neighboring valley. At the turn of the 20th century, local rancher John Winder improved an old Native American trail that reached Long Valley through the Zion area (park officials later improved the trail and renamed it the East Rim Trail). Then the Utah State Road Commission, established the same year that the national monument was created, set out to develop a state highway system that would include southern Utah. The first all-weather paved route from Cedar City to Springdale opened in 1913. State officials also negotiated with the Union Pacific Railroad to develop rail and automobile links and tourism facilities in southern Utah.

By the summer of 1917, touring cars could finally reach Wylie Camp, a tent camping resort that provided the first visitor lodging in Zion Canyon. The Utah Parks Company, a subsidiary of the Union Pacific Railroad, acquired the Wylie Camp in Zion, and offered ten-day rail/bus tours to Zion, Bryce, Kaibab, and the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. Construction of the Zion Lodge complex began in the mid-1920s at the site of the Wylie Way tent camp and was completed in 1927. Architect Gilbert Stanley Underwood designed Zion Lodge in the "Rustic Style" and the Utah Parks Company funded the construction. In 1968, the main lodge building was destroyed by fire but was later rebuilt. The detached Western Cabins () survived and were added to the National Register of Historic Places.

Work on what is now Utah State Route 9, known as the Zion-Mt. Carmel highway, started in 1927 to provide reliable access to the eastern and southern parts of the park. The road opened in 1930 and park visitation and travel in the area greatly increased. Perhaps the most famous feature of the highway is the 1.1 mile (1.8 km) Pine Creek tunnel, which has six large windows cut into massive sandstone. Switchbacks take motorists from the tunnel to the floor of Zion Canyon.

A visitor center was built at the site of the old Crawford family ranch near the south entrance in the 1950s. The Park Service converted it into a human-history museum in the year 2000 () and moved visitor center functions to a new solar powered facility between the Watchman campground and the south entrance.

Zion Canyon Scenic Drive was built to provide direct access in the canyon itself. It remained open to unregulated traffic for many years until traffic congestion forced the Park Service to limit private automobile access during peak visitation seasons to those with reservations at Zion Lodge. All other visitors must ride one of the frequent shuttle buses or walk to see the canyon. The 5 mile (8 km) Kolob Canyons Road was built in the mid-1960s to provide a scenic loop drive for that part of the park.

Geology

The nine known exposed formations visible in Zion National Park are part of a super-sequence of rock units called the Grand Staircase; they represent about 150 million years of mostly Mesozoic-aged sedimentation in that part of North America. The formationss exposed in the Zion area were deposited as sediment in very different environments:

Uplift affected the entire region, known as the Colorado Plateaus, by slowly raising these formations more than 10,000 feet (3000 m) higher than where they were deposited. This steepened the stream gradient of the ancestral Virgin and other rivers on the plateau.

The fast-moving streams took advantage of uplift-created joints in the rocks to remove all Cenozoic-aged formations and cut gorges into the plateaus. Zion Canyon was cut by the North Fork of the Virgin River in this way. During the later part of this process, lava flows and cinder coness covered parts of the area.

High water volume in wet seasons does most of the downcutting in the main canyon and carries much of the 3 million tons of rock and sediment that the Virgin River transports yearly. The Virgin cuts away its canyon faster than its tributaries can cut away their own streambeds, so tributaries end in waterfalls from hanging valleys where they meet the Virgin. Angels Landing between Twin Brothers Peak and Mountain of the Sun is a notable example of a hanging valley in the canyon.

Biology

grows on the canyon floor and blooms only at dusk and dawn.
Desert conditions persist on canyon bottoms and rocky ledges that are away from perennial streams. Sagebrush, Prickly pear Cactus, and Rabbitbrush, along with Sacred Datura and Indian Paintbrush, are common. Utah Penstemon () and Golden Aster () can also be found. Milkvetch and Prince's Plume are found in pockets of selenium-rich soils. Common daytime animals include squirrels, Pinyon Jays, and Whiptail and Collared () lizards, while Desert Cottontails, Jackrabbits, and Merriam's Kangaroo Rats come out at night. Coyotes, Gray Foxes, and Ringtails are the top predators.

Cooler conditions persist at mid-elevation slopes, between 3900 to 5500 feet (1190 to 1680 m). Stunted forests of pinyon pine and Juniper coexist here with manzanita shrubs, cliffrose, serviceberry, Scrub Oak, and yucca. Stands of Ponderosa Pine, Gambel Oak, and aspen populate the mesas and cliffs above 6000 feet (1830 m).

graze throughout the area and are the most-often seen megafauna.
Golden Eagles, Red-tailed Hawks, Peregrine Falcons, and White-throated Swifts can be seen in the area. California Condors as well as Bighorn Sheep were reintroduced by the mid-1990s. Nineteen species of bat also live in the area.

Boxelder, Fremont Cottonwood, maple, and willow dominate riparian plant communities. Animals such as the Bank Beaver, Flannel-mouth Suckers, gnatcatchers, the Virgin Spinedace, and Water Striders all make their homes in the riparian zones. Mule Deer browse on vegetation throughout the park.

Activities

More than 150 miles (240 km) of maintained trails provide access to the roadless interior. Seven popular trails with round trip times of half an hour (Weeping Rock) to 4 hours (Angels Landing) are found in Zion Canyon. Two popular trails, Taylor Creek (4 hours round trip) and Kolob Arch (9 hours round trip) are in the Kolob Canyons section of the park. In addition, there are two frequently used backcountry trails; East Rim (7 hours one-way) and West Rim (12 hours one-way). Rock climbing is allowed on selected rock faces.

The only lodging in the park is at Zion Lodge, located halfway through Zion Canyon. Zion Lodge is open year-round and has motel units, cabins, a restaurant, cafe, and gift shop but rooms fill up fast. Three campgrounds are available; South, Watchman (both at the mouth of Zion Canyon), and Lava Point (in the middle of the park off Kolob Terrace Road). Watchman is the only campground in the park that takes reservations and Lava Point has only primitive facilities and is usually open from May to October. Camping in the backcountry requires permits.

Guided horseback riding trips, nature walks, and evening programs are available from late March to early November. The Junior Ranger Program for ages 6 to 12 is active from Memorial Day to Labor Day at the Zion Nature Center. Rangers at the Zion Canyon Visitor Center and the smaller Kolob Canyons Visitor Center can help visitors plan their stay. A bookstore attached to the Zion Canyon Visitor Center, run by the Zion Natural History Association, offers books, maps, and souvenirs for sale, with proceeds benefiting the park. The Association also runs the Zion Human History Museum.

The adjacent town of Springdale, Utah offers additional services such as lodging, food, and entertainment (including the large format Zion Canyon Theater). A private campground in Springdale has full utility hook-ups and hot showers.

References

External links