Zion National Park
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Template:Infobox protected area Zion National Park is a United States National Park located near Springdale, Utah in the southwestern United States. The principal feature in the 229 square mile (593 km²) park is the 15 mile (24 km) long and up to half a mile (1 km) deep Zion Canyon, which was cut through the reddish and tan-colored Navajo Sandstone by the North Fork of the Virgin River. Other notable park features include the Great White Throne, Checkerboard Mesa, Kolob Arch, Three Patriarchs, and the Virgin River Narrows. The geology of the Zion and Kolob canyons area includes nine formations that together represent 150 million years of mostly Mesozoic-aged sedimentation. At various periods in that time, warm, shallow seas, streams, ponds and lakes, vast deserts and dry near-shore environments covered the area. Uplift associated with the creation of the Colorado Plateaus lifted the region 10,000 feet (3,000 m) starting 13 million years ago.
Human habitation of the area started about 8,000 years ago with small family groups of Native Americans. One of these groups became the semi-nomadic Basketmaker Anasazi by 300 CE. Increasingly less nomadic practices morphed this group into the Virgin Anasazi by 500 CE. A different group, the Parowan Fremont lived in the area as well. Both groups mysteriously disappeared by 1300 and were replaced by the Parrusits and several other Southern Paiute subtribes. The canyon was discovered by Mormons in 1858 and was settled by that same group in the early 1860s. Mukuntuweap National Monument was established in 1909 to protect the canyon and by 1919 the monument was expanded to become Zion National Park (Zion is an ancient Hebrew word meaning a place of refuge or sanctuary). The Kolob section was proclaimed a separate Zion National Monument in 1937, but was incorporated into the park in 1956.
Located at the junction of the Colorado Plateau, Great Basin, and Mojave Desert regions, this unique geography and variety of life zones allow for unusual plant and animal diversity. A total of 289 bird species, 75 mammals (including 19 species of bat), 32 reptiles and numerous plant species inhabit the park's four life zones: desert, riparian, woodland, and coniferous forest. Notable magafauna include Mountain Lions, Mule Deer, Golden Eagles, along with reintroduced California Condors and Bighorn Sheep. Common plant species include Cottonwood Cactus, Juniper Pine, Boxelder, Sagebrush and various willows.
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Geography
Image:Zion mount carmel highway view.jpg The park is located in southwestern Utah in Washington, Iron, and Kane counties. Geomorphically, it is located on the Markagunt and Kolob plateaus, at the intersection of three North American geographic provinces: The Colorado Plateaus, the Great Basin, and the Mojave Desert. The northern part of the park is known as the Kolob Canyons section and is accessible from Interstate 15.
The 8,726 foot (2660 m) summit of Horse Ranch Mountain (photo) is the highest point in the park; the lowest point is the 3,666 foot (1117 m) elevation of Coal Pits Wash, creating a relief of about 5,100 feet (1500 m).
Image:Zion National Park map1.jpg Streams in the area follow rectangular paths because they follow jointing planes in the rocks. The headwaters of the Virgin River are at about 9,000 feet (2700 m) and the river empties into Lake Mead 200 miles (320 km) southeast after flowing 8,000 feet (2400 m) downward. This gives the Virgin a stream gradient that ranges from 50 to 80 feet per mile (9–15 m/km)—one of the steepest stream gradients in North America.
Spring weather is unpredictable, with stormy, wet days being common, mixed with occasional warm, sunny weather. Precipitation is heaviest in March. 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 °F to 110 °F; 35 °C to 43 °C), but overnight lows are usually comfortable (65 °F to 70 °F; 18 °C to 21 °C). Afternoon thunderstorms are common from mid-July through mid-September. Storms may produce waterfalls as well as flash floods. 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 and heavier snow to the higher elevations. Clear days may become quite warm, reaching 60 °F (16 °C); nights are often 20 °F to 40 °F (−7 °C to 4 °C). Winter storms can last several days and make roads icy. Zion roads are plowed, except the Kolob Terrace Road, which is closed in winter. Winter driving conditions persist from November through March.
Notable geographical features of the park
- Virgin River Narrows
- Emerald Pools (photo)(photo)
- Angels Landing (photo) (photo)
- The Great White Throne (photo)
- The Three Patriarchs (photo)
- Kolob Arch, a remote cliff wall arch
Human history
Archaeologists have divided the long span of Zion's human history into four cultural periods, each characterized by distinctive technological and social adaptations.
Archaic period
Image:Scouts reconstructing an Anasazi granary near Weeping Rock.jpeg The first evidence of human use in the region dates to about 8,000 years ago when small family groups camped wherever they could hunt or collect plants and seeds. About 2,000 years ago, some groups began growing maize and other crops, leading to an increasingly sedentary lifestyle. Later groups in this period built permanent villages (often called pueblos). Archaeologists call this the Archaic period and it lasted until about 500 CE. Baskets, cordage nets, and yucca fiber sandals have been found and dated to this period. The Archaic toolkits also included flaked stone knives, drills, and stemmed dart points. The dart points were hafted to wooden shafts and propelled by throwing devices called atlatls.
By about 300 CE, 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
As centuries passed, their culture became less nomadic and more dependent on farming until they became almost totally dependent upon horticulture by around 500 CE, thus becoming what archaeologists call the Virgin Anasazi. Petroglyphs (rock art) from this period indicate that their culture was more complex and connected to its surroundings than it had been. Virgin Anasazi sites typically occur on river terraces along the Virgin River and its major tributaries, overlooking the fertile river bottoms where corn, squash, and other crops could be grown. This is called the Formative period and it lasted until about 1300.
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.
Protohistoric period
Image:Southern Paiute kaun huts.jpeg The Parrusits and several other Southern Paiute subtribes lived in the Virgin River Valley south of Zion Canyon for hundreds of years following the departure of the Anasazi and Fremont Indians. Tradition and some archaeological evidence holds that they are a Numic-speaking cousin of the Virgin Anasazi. Parrusits seasonally migrated up and down the valley in search of wild seeds and nuts in what is called the Neo-Archaic period. Some farming and hunting supplemented their diet.
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 rocks, 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
The Historic period begins in the late 18th century, with the exploration and settlement of southern Utah by Euro-Americans. Padres Dominguez and Escalante passed near what is now the Kolob Canyons Visitor Center on October 13, 1776, becoming the first white men known to visit the area. In 1826, trapper and trader Jedediah Smith led 16 men to explore the area in a quest to find a route to California. These and other explorations by traders from New Mexico blazed the Old Spanish Trail, which followed the Virgin River for a portion of its length.
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
In the 1850s, Mormon farmers and cotton growers from the Salt Lake area became the first white people to settle the Virgin River region. In 1851, the Parowan and Cedar City, Utah areas were settled by Mormons who used the Kolob Canyons area for timber, and for grazing cattle, sheep, and horses. They prospected for mineral deposits, and diverted Kolob water to irrigate crops in the valley below. Mormon settlers named the area Kolob - in Mormon scripture, the star nearest the residence of God.
In 1858, they had expanded 30 miles south to the lower Virgin River. That year, a Southern Paiute guide led young Mormon missionary and interpreter Nephi Johnson into the upper Virgin River area and Zion Canyon. Johnson wrote a favorable report about the agricultural potential of the upper Virgin River basin, and returned later that year to found the town of Virgin. More settlers arrived in 1860 and 1861 and settled the towns of Rockville and Springdale. 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.
In 1861 or 1862, Joseph Black made the arduous journey to Zion Canyon and was very impressed by its beauty. His stories about the Canyon were at first seen as exaggerated, prompting his neighbors to call the Canyon "Joseph's Glory". The floor of Zion Canyon was settled in 1863 by Issac Behunin, who farmed tobacco, sugar cane, and fruit trees. The Behunin family lived in Zion canyon near the site of today's Zion Lodge during the summer, and wintered in Springdale. Isaac Behunin is credited with naming Zion, a reference to a place of peace mentioned in the Bible.
Image:Crawford ranch in Zion Canyon.jpeg Two more families settled Zion canyon in the next couple of years, bringing with them cattle and other domesticated animals. The canyon floor was farmed until Zion became a Monument in 1909.
The John Wesley Powell expedition entered the area in 1869 after their first trip through the Grand Canyon. Powell returned in September 1872 and descended the East Fork of the Virgin River (Parunaweap Canyon) to the town of Shunesberg. He may have made the climb up to Zion Canyon, and named it Mukuntuweap under the impression that that was the Paiute name. In the same year, Geologist Grove Karl Gilbert, working with the Wheeler Survey, descended the North Fork of the Virgin River from Navajo Lake to Zion Canyon, making the first recorded descent of "The Narrows". It is likely that he named this remarkable section of canyon in the process.
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
Image:Zion great white throne.jpg Paintings of the canyon by Frederick S. Dellenbaugh were exhibited at the St. Louis World's Fair in 1904, followed by a glowing article in Scribner's Magazine the next year. That, along with previously created photographs, paintings, and reports, led to U.S. President William Howard Taft's proclamation creating Mukuntuweap National Monument on July 31, 1909. In 1917, the acting director of the newly created National Park Service visited the canyon and proposed changing its name Zion from the locally unpopular Mukuntuweap. That occurred the following year. The United States Congress added more land and established Zion National Park on November 19, 1919. A separate Zion National Monument, the Kolob Canyons area, was proclaimed on January 22, 1937, and was incorporated into the park on July 11, 1956.
Travel to the area before it was a national park was rare due to its remote location, lack of accommodations, and the absence of real roads in southern Utah. Old wagon roads were upgraded to the first automobile roads starting about 1910, and the road into Zion Canyon was built in 1917, to as far as The Grotto.
Image:Tour buses at Zion Lodge in 1929.jpeg By the summer of 1917, touring cars could reach Zion Canyon, and the Wylie Camp was established - a tent camp providing the first visitor lodging in Zion Canyon. The Utah Parks Company, a subsidiary of the Union Pacific Railroad, acquired the Wylie Camp in 1923, and offered ten-day rail/bus tours to Zion, Bryce, Kaibab, and the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. The Zion Lodge complex was built in 1925 at the site of the Wylie tent camp. 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 quickly rebuilt. The detached Western Cabins (photo) survived and were added to the National Register of Historic Places.
Image:East portal of Zion-Mt. Carmel tunnel in early 1930s.jpg 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.
In 1896, local rancher John Winder improved the Native American footpath up Echo Canyon so he could travel on horseback up to the East Rim, and hence to Long Valley. This trail was improved again about 1925 and became the East Rim Trail. Other trails were built in 1925 including the West Rim Trail and the Lady Mountain Trail. The auto road was extended to the Temple of Sinawava, and a trail built from there one mile to the start of the Narrows. The next year saw construction of the Angels Landing Trail, and two suspension bridges were built over the Virgin River. The Hidden Canyon trail was built in 1928. The West Rim and East Rim Trail were built for horse-back riding visitors, and were blasted out of the sandstone in many places.
The original ranger cabin was built at The Grotto in the 1920's. A real visitor center was first built in the 1950's, facing the Temples and Towers of the Virgin. Park facilities were redesigned in 2000, with the visitor center converted to a human-history museum (photo) and visitor center functions moved to a new solar powered facility adjacent to the south entrance.
Zion Canyon Scenic Drive provides access to Zion Canyon from Springdale. Traffic congestion in the narrow canyon was recognized as a major problem in the 1990's and a public transportation system using propane-powered shuttle buses was instituted in the year 2000. April through October, the scenic road in upper Zion Canyon is closed to private vehicles, and visitors ride the frequent shuttle buses. The new plan restored natural quiet to the upper canyon.
The 5 mile (8 km) Kolob Canyons Road was built in the mid-1960s to provide a scenic drive and access to the Kolob Canyons section of the park.
Geology
- Main article: Geology of the Zion and Kolob canyons area
Image:The Three Patriarchs in Zion Canyon.jpg 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 formations exposed in the Zion area were deposited as sediment in very different environments:
- The warm, shallow (sometimes advancing or retreating) sea of the Kaibab and Moenkopi formations
- Streams, ponds, and lakes of the Chinle, Moenave, and Kayenta formations
- The vast desert of the Navajo and Temple Cap formations
- The dry near-shore environment of the Carmel Formation
Uplift affected the entire region, known as the Colorado Plateaus, by slowly raising these formations more than 10,000 feet (3,000 m) higher than where they were deposited. This steepened the stream gradient of the ancestral Virgin and other rivers on the plateau.
Image:Kolob Canyons midway through Kolob Canyons Road.jpg 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 cones 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.
| Rock Layer | Appearance | Where To See | Deposition | Rock Type | Photo | |
| Dakota Formation | Cliffs | Top of Horse Ranch Mountain | Streams | Conglomerate and sandstone | Image:Dakota Sandstone.jpg | |
| Carmel Formation | Cliffs | Mt. Carmel Junction | Shallow sea and coastal desert | Limestone, sandstone and gypsum | Image:Carmel Formation.jpg | |
| Temple Cap Formation | Cliffs | Top of West Temple | Desert | Sandstone | Image:Temple Cap Formation atop Navajo Sandstone.jpg | |
| Navajo Sandstone | Steep cliffs 1,600 to 2,200 ft (490 to 670 m) thick Red lower layers are colored by iron oxides |
Tall cliffs of Zion Canyon; highest exposure is West Temple and Checkerboard Mesa (photo)<p> | Desert sand dunes covered 150,000 mile² (390,000 km²)<p>Shifting winds during deposition created cross-bedding | Sandstone | Image:Navajo Sandstone seen from Hidden Canyon Trail.jpg | |
| Kayenta Formation | Rocky slopes | Throughout canyon | Streams | Siltstone and sandstone | Image:Keyenta Formation in Kolob Canyons.jpeg | |
| Moenave Formation | Slopes and ledges | Lower red cliffs seen from Zion Human History Museum | Streams and ponds | Siltstone and sandstone | Image:Moenave Formation.jpeg | |
| Chinle Formation | Purpleish slopes | Above Rockville | Streams | Shale, loose clay and conglomerate | Image:Chinle Formation near Springdale, Utah.jpeg | |
| Moenkopi Formation | Chocolate cliffs with white bands | Rocky slopes from Virgin to Rockville | Shallow sea | Shale, siltstone, sandstone, mudstone, and limestone | Image:Moenkopi Formation.jpeg | |
| Kaibab Formation | Cliffs | Hurricane Cliffs along I-15 near Kolob Canyons | Shallow sea | Limestone | Image:Hurricane Cliffs1.jpeg |
