Zion National Park Utah

Visiting Zion National Park in the gorgeous state of Utah was high on our bucket list. Well, as you can imagine, it was exciting to cross it off our list.

Zion National Park Utah

It was a glorious day at the beginning of June when we drove down to Springdale to explore the main portion of Zion NP. When we entered the park our first stop was to the Visitors Center for information. One thing we learned there, much to our disappointment, was that you needed to ride a shuttle bus to visit the “scenic drive”. Since Covid we are really not thrilled with being in confined spaces with strangers. So we decided not to do that and drove the route that allowed us to be in our own vehicle.

I can’t even begin to imagine what the scenic route looked like, because the drive we took was breathtaking! We drove passed stunning rock monoliths and craggy canyons that were chiseled over millions of years by the Virgin River.

Work in progress

Believe it or not, Zion National Park is still a work in progress that is constantly evolving. Those legendary rock formations are made of layers of sedimentary rock that dates back millions of years. Each of those layers relates a different story about the area’s steady journey from a flat, sea level basin to the towering canyon walls and cliff faces we saw on our drive.

Here’s a bit of an overview of those layers. The origins date back to the Kaibab Formation 270 million years ago. It was composed of marine limestone and siltstone that was deposited in a shallow tropical sea and coastal flats. The newest formation is Cedar Mountain, which isn’t exactly newly formed. It dates back 120 million years. Cedar Mountain is made up of conglomerate and sandstone that was deposited by inland flowing rivers. It’s all of those various items that the layers are made of that create the gorgeous colors of the rocks in the area.

Utah’s oldest park

Zion is Utah’s oldest national park. It’s also the most visited! It was established in 1919, and today an average of 4.5 million visitors enter the park each year.

Inhabitants

Dating back to between 800 and 1,500 years ago, Zion NP was inhabited by the Anasazi people. Throughout the park you can see remnants of abandoned cliff houses and rock art. By 1858, the Paiute Native Americans were occupying the canyon.

The first European-American settler to become a resident was Isaac Behunin. He built a one room log cabin in 1861, near where Zion Lodge sits today. Behunin named his new home Zion because he felt he could worship G-d among those great cathedrals just as well as anyone else could in an actual church. Following close behind him were a few other settlers who established farms along the valley floor.

Zion National Park Utah is located at the intersection of the Colorado Plateau, Great Basin, and Mojave Desert. Flora and fauna in the park is extensive and quite diverse. The park is home to 78 species of mammals, 291 species of birds, 37 species of reptiles and amphibians, 8 species of fish, and more than 1,000 species of plants.

Timeline to National Park status

In 1909, President William Howard Taft proclaimed the area a national monument in order to protect Zion Canyon and the surrounding area. The first road through the canyon was opened in 1917. President Woodrow Wilson’s administration dramatically expanded the area of protection in 1918. Then in 1919 it was designated as Zion National Park.