The last of our whirlwind post-Christmas Utah swing through three national parks, a state park, and BLM land, Zion is always a crowd favorite. And the crowds were out in force. Pandemic or not, holiday season or not, Zion was packed. Zion Canyon itself was closed without a reservation, so we confined our visit to the eastern side of the park. Still absolutely stunning!

Paula and I visited east Zion on December 30, 2020 and remained confined to our car except for photo taking to remain Covid safe. I was thrilled for her to see the beauty within the park. While I love everything about Zion National Park, the east side has an appeal to me because it is so different from Zion Canyon. Most of the granite structures are white instead of red. There is usually less traffic on the east side, but not this day, as you weren’t allowed onto a shuttle into the canyon without a pre-approved reservation. So everyone crowded to the east.

The drive along the Zion-Mount Carmel road (Hwy 9) is breathtaking, including through the mile-long tunnel and the twisty, winding road down to the canyon level. We did manage to find a picnic table with some solitude for a nice lunch in a pleasant breeze.

We were there a total of about five hours and left late in the afternoon to head back to our home in western Colorado. About that… on the drive back we learned that the AirBnB host might have contracted Covid from family over Christmas while we were gone.

Pivot to an emergency home search, and an abrupt change of plans. Instead of spending the last four days of our AirBnB contract there, we found a hotel room in Grand Junction where we stayed, and Paula worked, including on New Year’s Day. She has taught me to be adaptive and quick on my feet leading the nomad life.

This gallery includes pictures from the east side of Zion National Park in Utah. Enjoy the photos, and please feel free to comment.

As visitation at Zion National Park reaches record highs, park officials are asking for the public’s help as they grapple with a rising challenge: unprecedented levels of graffiti along the protected sanctuary’s most popular trails.

“We take this very seriously, and it’s becoming a huge problem for us,” chief ranger Daniel Fagergren says. “It’s everywhere.”

He says nearly every day at Zion, staff are finding words and shapes painted and drawn with mud, dirt, or pigment or even scratched on rocks or carved within moss. The vandalism has been found along the vast majority of hikes located in Zion Canyon, including The Narrows, Angels Landing, West Rim Trail, Emerald Pools Trails, and Kayenta Trail, and has been increasing since park officials first brought attention to the growing concern back in September.

According to Fagergren, the graffiti issues are twofold and both related to the coronavirus pandemic.

One reason behind the problem may be that thousands of first-time visitors from across the nation have flooded the park, including residents of major cities under strict restrictions, some of whom may not appreciate or understand the ethics of preserving and protecting public lands. He says September and October were both record-setting months for visitation. October saw a 30% increase in visitors compared to October of 2019, which was another record-setting year.

Fagergren said another part of the problem is that there have been fewer patrols keeping a sharp lookout for vandals, as he works to keep his own staff safe and prevent them from contracting COVID-19. While more acts of vandalism have slipped through the cracks as a result, he noted that graffiti is also contagious, spreading exponentially as more and more visitors see the vandalism and presume the acts are acceptable.

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Officials at Utah’s Zion National Park are grappling with unprecedented amounts of graffiti throughout the park as visitors continue to flock to the canyon.

These days, besides their normal job description of welcoming visitors, park rangers face the additional challenges of managing the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic response as well as the presence of a toxic cyanobacteria bloom in the North Fork of the Virgin River, which runs through the park.

The graffiti, which has been found along the popular Narrows hike, the Kayenta Trail and on the West Rim/Angel’s Landing Trail near Scout Lookout is something that Zion’s chief ranger Daniel Fagergren said the park has never seen at this level until this year.

“I have seen more graffiti than I have ever seen before. It’s all over, and we’re trying to get ahead of it,” he said.

The park is seeing a new type of visitor, one who may have never visited a national park before and may only be venturing out as a result of being cooped up due to the pandemic.

“They are different visitors than we normally get,” Fagergren said, adding that many of them don’t have the same affinity for pubic lands as visitors in the past.

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Trish Jennings watched customers dining 6 feet apart outside her Bit & Spur Restaurant and Saloon on an evening in mid-August, missing the usual gregarious chatter of outdoor adventures.

Springdale, a small southwest Utah town sits just outside the gates of Zion National Park, and most of the restaurant’s customers arrived after a day exploring the park’s 2,000-foot-deep canyon. Jennings, 53, and her staff are accustomed to swapping hiking and camping stories with thousands of visitors every summer from all over the world, often forging new friendships.

For many residents like Jennings, those daily exchanges were essential to the town’s spirit, often making it seem bigger than a community of 660 people. But the COVID-19 pandemic — along with Springdale’s new social distancing measures and mask requirement — have given the easygoing, sociable town a subdued feeling this summer.

While tourists have steadily returned since the park reopened on May 13, there are still fewer than usual — 449,518 recreational visitors in July, down from 629,802 the same time last year, with few, if any, coming from outside the country — and the conversations in restaurants, shops and motels are shorter and more transactional. Many of the town’s elderly residents are staying home, avoiding the crowds at the park.

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In recent years, Zion National Park has toyed with the idea of a timed-entry system to reduce overcrowding, but the proposal has never gone over well with Utah’s political leaders who helped scuttle such a plan developed for Arches National Park. Now the coronavirus epidemic is forcing reservation protocols upon one of Utah’s most popular and crowded tourist destinations.

Starting on Wednesday, July 1, 2020, Zion will resume its idled shuttle service and require all those visiting Zion Canyon to make reservations to use it, thus eliminating recent gridlock caused by private vehicles. Reservations can be made online, each costing $1. The goal of reservations, which will be needed through year’s end to ride the shuttle, is to ensure park visitors won’t queue up in big groups to board at the visitor center.

Bringing the shuttles on line will increase access. If they don’t go to a system with timed-entry tickets, they would have worse lines than normal summers because there are fewer seats in the shuttles [to provide social distancing]. Private vehicles will be barred from the canyon, but the 6.2-mile road will remain open to those entering on bicycles.

Also on July 1, Zion, the busiest of Utah’s “Mighty 5″ national parks, will resume collecting entrance fees, set at $35 per vehicle or $20 per person entering without a vehicle.

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  A sprawling network of camping resorts called Above Zion could soon begin unfolding in the Kolob highlands on Zion National Park’s northern boundary, potentially resulting in an influx of overnight use in a remote and scenic part of southern Utah.

Late last year, Ian Crowe, a St. George real estate broker, filed applications with Washington County officials to develop nearly 3,000 camping sites, including yurts, tents, vintage trailers, shipping containers, even treehouses, near Kolob Reservoir and the park’s Lava Point, about 25 miles up the winding Kolob Terrace Road from the town of Virgin.

But the project was largely kept under wraps until about a month ago, when a Kolob property owner saw a small notice posted by a road, announcing a hearing before the Washington County Planning Commission. The property owner in turn alerted the National Park Service and the Washington County Water Conservancy District to the project for the first time.

For about the past century, Kolob Mountain has been used mostly for ranching with about 270 seasonal homesites scattered around the juniper-covered draws above the famed Narrows of the Virgin River. At 8,000 feet in elevation, the Kolob area is snowbound in winter and inaccessible, but the summer population can reach as high as 800 on busy days.

Above Zion builds on the concept of “glamping,” which is catching on at private resorts near national parks and other protected lands where visitors can experience the area without relying on public resources.

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No one will ever see “no trespassing” signs in Zion Narrows, thanks to a complicated land deal tapping money from myriad federal, state and private sources that will keep a historic property in a farming family’s hands, while preserving public access to one of the nation’s finest hiking destinations.

The famed 16-mile Utah trail, which can be hiked by permit only, starts outside Zion National Park’s eastern border and passes through an 880-acre parcel, long owned by the Bulloch family, before entering the park and continuing to Zion Canyon.

For decades, the family allowed hikers to pass through the property known as Simon Gulch, but it posted “for sale” signs last year after the federal government low-balled the land’s value for a potential public acquisition. The impasse has now been broken with easements that shield the land from development and guarantee access to the Narrows forever, under agreements announced by The Trust for Public Land, which orchestrated the $1.5 million deal.

Simon Gulch was among numerous Zion “edge holdings” — private land just outside park boundaries — that complicate access to some out-of-the-way destinations, such as Orderville and Parunuweap canyons. Additionally, some 3,400 acres in 32 private parcels remain, leaving open the prospect for trophy homes arising inside Utah’s marquee park.

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Monsoonal rains are taking a toll on Zion National Park, where not only roads are being covered and blocked by debris washed down mountainsides but trails are being torn apart.

While Riverside Walk has reopened after a potent storm Wednesday, July 11, 2018 brought flooding, mudslides, and rockfalls to the park, cleanup won’t be easy. As of midday Friday, July 13 the Zion-Mount Carmel Highway and several trails, including Angels Landing, Kayenta, Upper Emerald Pools, and West Rim from the Grotto to Cabin Spring, were all closed. And heavy rains were in the afternoon forecast.

Sand, debris, and small rockfalls were the issue on Riverside Walk. In one area, the sand was 3 feet deep covering the trail. Trail crews worked all day Wednesday and Thursday morning on clearing the trail. In the meantime, the Zion Shuttle turned around at Big Bend, and there was no access to The Narrows from the Temple of Sinewava. Now that Riverside Walk is clear, shuttles have resumed their full route.

Mud and debris on the Zion-Mount Carmel Highway was 3-4 feet deep in several areas, overwhelming the road drainage culverts and making the road impassable. Dozens of vehicles were initially stranded in the 1.1-mile tunnel, and some were stuck in the mud flow. Roads crews were able to plow a path to the vehicles to get them out late Wednesday night. Crews made much progress Thursday and were hoping to finish clearing the rest of the road and the culverts by late afternoon Friday.

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Access to portions of the Kolob Canyons District of Zion National Park will be restricted due to a construction project beginning May 1, 2018. The project involves reconstructing sections of the road, repaving the entire road, and adding accessible parking, sidewalk, and toilet facilities.

All of Kolob Canyons Road, the Visitor Center, and parking lot off of Interstate 15, will be closed to all traffic during the seven month project. The Taylor Creek Trail, the Timber Creek Overlook Trail, Lee Pass Trailhead and other areas served via the Kolob Canyons Road will not be available to the public.

Overnight permitted hikes will be drop off / pick up only, from April 15 through April 30, 2018. No vehicles or hiking will be permitted inside the closure beginning May 1, 2018.

Construction engineers and Park officials have determined that closing these areas during the project will be safest for visitors and workers, as well as expediting the work, so the area may open at the soonest possible date.

Visitors will be able to access the La Verkin Creek Trail and hike to the Kolob Arch via the Hop Valley Trail. Visitors may access the Hop Valley Trailhead from the Kolob Terrace Road. Overnight trips require a permit. There are many surrounding State Parks, Forest Service and public land scenic areas to consider as alternatives to Kolob Canyons during this closure.

With a month to spare, Zion National Park has set a new record for visitation this year, heightening concerns about overcrowding just as park managers consider a controversial fee hike and requiring visitors to go through an online reservation system.

The park had counted 4,365,946 visitors through the end of November, representing nearly a 5 percent increase over last year’s record numbers. Since 2010, the park has seen visitation increase nearly 70 percent.

Zion wasn’t alone among Utah parks in drawing record numbers of crowds.

Nearby Bryce Canyon National Park was at 2.5 million visitors through November, already eclipsing last year’s record of 2.4 million. Capitol Reef had already set its new record as of the end of October, at 1.1 million visitors. Both have seen the number of visitors more than double over the past decade.

Arches and Canyonlands national parks have only reported their visitation through October, but both were on pace to eclipse last year’s record visitation as well, with Arches at 1.4 million visitors and Canyonlands at 695,148.

The National Park Service’s own analysis suggested that the five national parks and other national monuments attracted more than $1 billion in direct visitor spending, including nearly $500 million spent in southwestern Utah at Zion and Bryce Canyon.

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