A winter's visit to Zion National Park practically defines "sublime."/NPS
I stopped at Zion National Park on the way home from Death Valley. At first it seemed to be almost as busy as it is on a summer day. What little did I know then.
Only two loops of Watchman Campground are open right now, and I had no trouble finding a site even though it was pretty late in the afternoon. Some of the motels in Springdale displayed signs offering discounted winter rates. Rockville had replaced their town's iconic 100-watt streetlight bulbs that hang on wires across the street with red, green, blue, and yellow bulbs. Y'gotta love a town like that!
And it was c-c-c-c-c-c-cold there.
Thank goodness for electric hookups in Watchman. This time, though, instead of running my air conditioner, I was able to fight frost with an electric heater. It kept my little home pleasantly toasty.
The first thing I noticed was the contrast between the quality of maintenance in Zion's campground and what I had seen in Death Valley. Zion, for whatever reason, is far better. I don't know why, but it's very noticeable. Perhaps it's because Zion is so much more compact. Perhaps it has something to do with funding. Maybe it's because Zion's facilities are much newer. Perhaps it comes down to the people on the ground like the lady wearing an Arrowhead who had just spent about an hour cleaning the restrooms nearest my campsite.
Therese, who was reluctant to give her name because 'I'm not the only one who does this work,' certainly nailed it when she told me that she and her coworkers take real pride in what a restroom looks like when they leave it. Maybe it has something to do with the people who visit the park ' like the guy I saw using a towel to wipe down the sink he had just finished using.
Whatever it is, it's tangible and it does make a big difference.
Some major construction was taking place behind the visitor center. I asked if it was a repaving job or if they were expanding the always overcrowded parking lot. They're adding more than a hundred new parking spots. I don't like that at all. But what else can be done? About the only alternative I can see is for the Park Service to purchase some of the empty land south of Rockville, build parking lots and extend the shuttle bus routes. Fat chance of that ever happening. Then again, back in the '80s people thought there was a fat chance of shuttles ever happening. Then came a park superintendent named Falvey and Springdale mayor named Bimstein who worked together and made it happen.
A camper window view of Zion/Lee Dalton
Gee, d'ya suppose . . . . ?
I drove up into the park two days before New Years Eve. I have never seen such a crowded mess. Not even back in the '80s before the shuttles were the park roads and parking lots as crammed with vehicles as they were on December 29, 2014. I didn't even try to park so I could hike a trail or two. Cars and big RVs were stacked three deep in the Grotto parking lot. They spilled over onto the roads on both sides for several hundred yards. Most were parked half on and half off the pavement so that left just a narrow opening down the center of the road for traffic to try to maneuver. It was the same situation at Weeping Rock's parking.
As with Death Valley, most of the visitors out there were from Asia. The campground was different, with a population of what appeared to be mainly U.S. folks.
Farther down the road toward Temple of Sinawava and the Narrows Trail, the mess was downright ridiculous. I circled the dead end parking area once and headed back out but was blocked by a huge tour bus with what looked like Korean writing on the sides. At the sharp curve just east of the Temple parking area a large RV was parked halfway into the road. Cars on the other side left an almost impossibly narrow passage for the bus. I stopped and waited while some men who had gotten out of their cars near the jam helped the bus driver navigate the curve.
Then we had another problem. As the bus approached where I was waiting with a long line of cars and trucks behind me, we could see that he couldn't get into the parking lot. All the bus parking area was taken by cars and RVs. Another man and I began persuading drivers in the line to back up to make room for the bus. It was the only way we were going to get out of there. People were good natured about it and we finally managed to clear something of a path and guide an obviously fearful bus driver through the squeeze. Even though he had at least eight inches on either side of the bus, he sure looked worried about scratching it.
Every time the bus paused for a moment, more and more of its passengers bailed out and rushed toward the Gateway (aka the Riverside Walk) trail. I'll bet they knew they were on a schedule and had to see Zion in 30 minutes or less before moving on to their next park.
When I finally managed to drive out and head back down canyon, I met a law enforcement ranger headed up. I had to chuckle and thought, Good luck, friend. You're going to need it!
I decided to take a quick trip up the Zion / Mount Carmel Road through the tunnels to see if I could find some red rock and snow. The rock and snow were there, all right, but so were about a million or so people and their cars. Just beyond the upper end of the long tunnel is parking for the Canyon Overlook Trail. Jammed. Again, vehicles parked in every conceivable spot and even some that were INconceivable. Again, many were Asians, and I guess it's understandable how much they wanted to experience something they had dreamed of seeing; a place that had drawn them to travel halfway around the world.
So you can probably imagine what happened just around the first bend in the road uphill from the tunnel where ten or so bighorn sheep were putting on a real circus. It took quite awhile to weave my way though. As I did, I rolled my window down just in time to hear one of the bighorns say to another, 'Wow, Edna, look at that! We've got 'em backed up in both directions as far as you can see!'
Really!
I got home and realized that I'd taken only one decent picture during the time I was in Zion. So here's the view out my bedroom window as sunrise painted the canyon that morning of one of the last days of 2014. If you want to see more of Zion at New Years, take a look at the photos elsewhere in Traveler accompanying Jim Burnett's story of the storms that hit the day I left.
Beyond that, all I'll say is this: Why in the world are we fearful that our parks are being forgotten? They sure seem to be infested with those critters that walk on two legs and travel on round rubber rings.
Are there any answers to the questions we ask and challenges we face?
I hope so . . . .
But is anyone looking?
Comments
MINIMAL infrastructure????????????
Spending one or two weekdays in a quick visit to a park is certainly not the best way to learn about the place.
It's very easy to criticize instead of making a sincere effort to learn the facts. I'm actually surprised that Zion's backlog is as small as it is.
I wish I had hauled out my camera yesterday and had recorded some of what I witnessed. There were tour buses everywhere, each probably hauling fifty or so passengers. As I waited on the downhill side of the tunnel, there were three or four among the long line of traffic that poured out of the tunnel and headed into the canyon. Were they even able to find a place to park? There was one small tour bus in front of me as I entered the gate at Springdale. It continued directly up the switchbacks ahead of me and finally pulled off at the Checkerboard Mesa parking area. It caught up with me awhile later when I stopped at the rest area just north of Glendale. Was that the "Zion experience" for visitors on that bus. Did their guides decide to forego a planned visit when they saw the crowds?
I don't know. I don't believe they had spent the night in Springdale because I caught up to them between Rockville and Springdale. If that was indeed the case, it's a real pity to my way of thinking.
I don't pretend to have answers. Perhaps there aren't any. But I remain firm in my belief that it's awfully hard to really enjoy a park visit when the park looks like a Tokyo subway station.
Thanks, Kurt, for trying to bring some good information to light here. I wonder if it might be possible to get numbers on daily visitation for the last month or so?
Criticize? Exactly where was my criticism? I asked for the facts and Kurt supplied at least some of them. What did they show? First, Zion's infrasturcture is much smaller than other major parks such as Great Smokies, Yellowstone and Yosemite. Second, very little of the maintenance was of a critical nature including none for paved roads, the parks most significant infrastructure. BTW, who pays for the maintenance of the Carmel Highway? Is it state road (Highway 9) within the park boundaries or is the park service responsible for its maintenance.
After reading this report and the ensuing commentary on traffic and crowds at Zion, I'm sure glad my own experiences stem from working there in 1969. I wonder how much the internet and social media have influenced park visitation? I think social media have made it much easier to post images of park scenery and bring parks into the homes and offices of urban, suburban and even rural America. I believe that this is partly responsible for the recent increase in park visitation.
Normally, to escape crowds in parks, I recommend going for a hike, preferrably a long hike. However, this time of year in Zion, the temperatures can get very warm, which is not connducive to long walks at mid-day with bright sun reflecting off of red sandstone walls.
On the other hand, try a hike under full moon, perhaps taking the river walk from the Temple of Sinawava, or to avoid heat, start your hike very early in the morning from trail heads at higher elevation.
One of my favorite short hikes is a pre-dawn walk along the Canyon Overlook trail with its trail head on the eastern terminus of the Mt. Carmel Tunnel. If you time it right, you can experience the full moon setting in the west over the Temples and Towers of the Virgin while dawn slowly arrives with the sun rising in the east. In the pre-dawn morning hours, parking at the east end of the tunnel should not be a problem.
You got it, Owen. Another factor with extra heavy weekend use right now is that it's springtime and local folks know this is best time to visit without broiling. (However, this past weekend was anything but broiling. It was downright chilly!)
We used to think back in the early 1980's that things were crowded. Little did we know what was coming.
I shudder to even try to imagine what Zion would be like today without the shuttles.
As for deteriorating infrastructure, it's very simple. We can pay for it now or we can pay for it later or we can ignore it and wait for it to disintegrate. Unfortunately, Congress seems to have chosen the last option -- not only in Zion and our parks, but in many other critical areas of the nation's public utilities.
Here's a link to an article from today's Deseret News in Salt Lake:
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865629369/Zions-trees-are-dying-of-ol...
The first commentor on that article seems to have a pretty good idea. Could plant quite a number of sizable cottonwoods for $7 million.
The deer hunt idea sounds good too - though I must say, I didn't see any deer while I was there. Don't know if they are really an issue or not.
My wife and I have been coming to Zion NP and southwest Utah for over 20 years before retiring and moving about 20 minutes from the south entrance to Zion. What we've witnessed in the past several years is almost scarey. Each year the hoards of visitors descending upon the park seem to be tens of thousands more than the year before. Lee's description of the inevitable parking mess is spot on. Like Lee, we absolutely appreciate the fact that many of these people traveled across the continent and from around the world to see the sites of this beautiful state and we truly want them to enjoy these wonders as we have and try to help them whenever we can. On the other hand, it's infuriating to see many of these visitors parking their vehicle in areas clearly signed as "NO PARKING", or destroying the roadside and plants as they park in ridiculous locations, often obstructing traffic flow on the already narrow roads. It seems the attitude is 'I know this is wrong but I've come a long way, so too bad!' Part of me would like to see them ticketed enormous sums that hurt their pocketbooks But I know that's not the answer. The park service is going to have to do something proactive to mitigate the overcrowding. I think a year round shuttle system will eventually be inevitable and something MUST be done to alleviate parking congestion on the east end of the park beyond the long tunnel. At some point it might be necessary to place boulders or some other type of barricade to prevent folks from parking on the side of the road.
How about a reservation system for entering the park? We accept that for concerts. If there are no more tickets, we don't go. We accept that for sporting events. It the game is soid out, we don't show up.