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![]() | ZionBrochure |
Official Brochure of Zion National Park (NP) in Utah. Published by the National Park Service (NPS).
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Zion
Zion National Park
Utah
National Park Service
U.S. Department of the Interior
All this is the
music of waters.
John Wesley Powell, 1895
Large photo: Towers of the
Virgin and The West Temple
© TOM BEAN
Wrought by Water
multiplies with each slope, aspect,
and soil type, with each minute
change in precipitation or tempera
ture. Add to these infuences species
from nearby ecosystems, and Zion
becomes an assemblage of plants,
and thus of animals, found nowhere
else exactly like this. Although the
southwestern desert may look homo
geneous, each fold, wrinkle, bend,
slope, mesa top, and canyon bottom
creates its unique conditions. This un
likely desert harbors a mosaic of envi
ronments, each fnetuned to place.
Welcome to the one called Zion.
More than the river’s music and the
soaring heights alone, Zion’s nature
GREAT
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3,100 ft
945 m
Zion •
COLORADO
PLATEAU
NAVAJO SANDSTONE
Stratigraphy,
The Kolob Canyons and Hurricane Clifs (photo above and diagram at left) are at the western
edge of the massive, uplifted Colorado Plateau
(map at left).
Zion Canyon
Kayenta mudstone features dinosaur tracks.
KAYENTA FORMATION
Zion. These rocks formed in environ
Lower Moenave deposits testify to pooling waters; upper ones indicate
swiftmoving foods.
MOENAVE FORMATION
ments as varied as sand dunes and
CHINLE FORMATION
Chinle Formation shales are soft and contain petrifed wood.
PETRIFIED FOREST MEMBER
© DAViD PETTiT
Shinarump Conglomerate is composed of varied sizes of eroded
Moenkopi rubble.
SHINARUMP CONGLOMERATE
MOENKOPI FORMATION
Westward expansion eventually
brought new settlers to the canyon.
In the 1860s, early Mormon pioneers
came to the region and built small
communities and farmed the river
terraces. Through hard work and
faith, the new residents endured in
a landscape where fash foods de
stroyed towns and drought burned
crops. The same threats exist today,
but Zion daily draws new explorers
to experience the beauty and the
sanctuary of this place that countless
generations have considered home.
Zion’s beauty and bounty
have beckoned to humans
over a great span of time.
This corn and its storage jar,
found in the park, are over
1,000 years old.
NPS
LiBRARY OF CONGRESS
as Ancestral Puebloans. The diverse
geological setting gave them a com
bination rare in deserts: terraces to
grow food, a river for water, and an
adequate growing season. On the
Colorado Plateau, crops grow best
between 5,000 and 7,000 feet of ele
vation, which makes Zion’s elevations
nearly ideal. But drought, resource
depletion, and migrations eventually
decreased the Ancestral Puebloans’
dominance. The Southern Paiute peo
ple who followed brought traditions
suited to the harsh desert climate and
thrived here.
Virgin River
The Moenkopi Formation records a shallow sea withdrawing, so the
marine fossils differ in its bottom and top layers.
NPS
In a Haven of Habitats
People have occupied the landscape
of what is now Zion National Park for
thousands of years. Zion’s frst resi
dents tracked mammoths, camels, and
other mammals though open desert
and sheltered canyons. With climate
change, disease, and overhunting,
these animals died out 8,000 years
ago. Hunters adapted by hunting
smaller animals and gathering food.
As resources kept diminishing, people
adjusted to suit their location. One
desert culture, evident here still,
evolved over the next 1,500 years as
a community of farmers now known
The Vermilion Clifs, White
Clifs, and Pink Clifs (diagram at left) are part of the
Grand Staircase, the southwestern edge of the Colorado
Plateau. The Bryce Canyon
and Cedar Breaks amphitheaters are etched into the Pink
Clifs at the top of the Grand
Staircase.
Navajo sandstone’s sweeping lines of contrasting color record the move
ments of sand dunes.
the study of rock layers, reveals the
relative age of the rocks before you at
s
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Park
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Nor
Zio
© TOM TiLL
Kolob
Canyons
TEMPLE CAP FORMATION
shallow sea bottoms.
Bryce Canyon
National Park
Cedar Breaks
National Monument
rric a n e C
Long before today’s landscape even
appeared, streams, oceans, deserts,
and volcanos deposited thousands of
feet of mud, lime, sand, and ash. The
immense pressure and heat of accu
mulating sediments turned lower lay
ers to stone. Later, underground forces
uplifted the Colorado Plateau, a
130,000squaremile mass of rock,
over 10,000 feet above sea level.
Rain’s watery fngers then worked
the Plateau’s minute cracks, loosening
grains and widening fractures—and
eroding today’s mighty canyons.
These processes continue; rivers still
deposit sediments that turn to stone,
earthquakes still punctuate the Pla
teau’s upward journey, and erosion
pries rockfalls from Zion’s seemingly
immutable cliffs. Eventually, this
beautiful canyon will melt away and
others will form. All it takes is time.
DESERT
11,307 ft
3,446 m
LO
Colorado Plateau waters run. Zion’s
gathered waters, known as the Virgin
River, traverse Mojave Desert lands
and join the Colorado River in Lake
Mead’s handmade basin before com
pleting their Pacifcbound journey.
O
Water creates emerald oases
of lush plants in an otherwise
red desert landscape. Red
rocks of a remarkable slot
canyon reveal how rushing
waters forcefully shaped its
narrow and twisting walls.
Tinted blue by sky, winter’s
snow highlights the landscape, and then melts to feed
scouring river torrents in
spring.
AU
Hu
It’s ironic, in this seemingly unending
desert, that water creates most of
what we see. North of Zion, rain fall
ing on the 11,000foothigh Colorado
Plateau races downhill, slices Zion’s
relatively soft layers, and pushes its
debris off the Plateau’s southern
edge. This edge is not abrupt, but it
steps down in a series of cliffs and
slopes known as the Grand Staircase.
Above Zion, topping the Staircase,
Bryce Canyon’s crenellated edges
form as water trickles off the Plateau.
Below Zion, Grand Canyon forms the
lowest rung into which 90 percent of
P
TE
CO
Geologic Contrasts Create Diversity
BASIN
LA
© FRED HiRSCHMANN
Green canyons, red clifs,
blue skies: Zion’s colors can
stop you in your tracks , as
the three photos at left show.
© TOM TiLL
Everything in Zion takes life from the
Virgin River’s scarce desert waters.
Water fows, and solid rock melts into
cliffs and towers. Landscape changes
as canyons deepen to create forested
highlands and lowland deserts. A rib
bon of green marks the river’s course
as diverse plants and animals take
shelter and thrive in this canyon
oasis. From the beginning people
sought this place, this sanctuary in
the desert’s dry reaches. The very
name Zion, meaning ”promised land,”
evokes its signifcance.
© LAURENCE PARENT
Immutable yet ever changing, the
cliffs of Zion stand resolute, a glow
ing presence in late day, a wild calm.
Melodies of waters soothe desert
parched ears, streams twinkle over
stone, wren song cascades from red
rock cliffs, cottonwood leaves jitter
on the breeze. But when lightning
fashes waterfalls erupt from dry
cliffs, and foods fash down water
less canyons exploding log jams, hurl
ing boulders, croaking wild joyous
ness, and dancing stone and water
and time. Zion is alive with move
ment, a river of life always here and
always changing.
In the 1800s, popular artist
Thomas Moran captured the
majesty of Zion Canyon (left)
that sparked making it a park
and a premier American vacation destination (far left in
1929). Water both fashions
beauty and supports the richness that makes Zion such a
haven of habitats.
Zion’s Natural Diversity
Quaking aspen
Mountain lion
GERAlD & BUFF CORSI
© CAlIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
Tarantula
Desert tortoise
Canyon treefrog
Black-chinned hummingbird
© STEPHEN O. MUSkIE
SCIENCES
© FRED HIRSCHMANN
Prince’s plume
Colorado columbine
NPS
RED ClIFFS DESERT RESERVE
© lARRY UlRICH
Pallid bat with scorpion
RIVER
Peregrine falcon
Elk
© GEORGE H.H. HUEY
CANYON
GERAlD & BUFF CORSI © CAlIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
NPS
GERAlD & BUFF CORSI © CAlIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
Steller’s jay
GERAlD & BUFF CORSI © CAlIFORNIA ACADEMY OF
That’s also true away from the river, where
aridity has real meaning. Zion Canyon’s annual
precipitation may total a mere 15 inches.
This national park is beautiful but not pristine. Research shows that 150 years of farming, grazing, and recreation changed Zion’s
environment. Exotic species like tamarisk and
cheatgrass replace native willow and native
grasses. It is the mission of the National Park
Service to provide sanctuary for and reinvigorate Zion’s remaining diversity. Although most
park species are not unusual and much has
changed, these unique assemblages create
and sustain the relevance and sanctity of this
wondrous place called Zion.
Sego lily
lARRY BlAklEY © CAlIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
In the desert over 500 times more species are
found at water sources than in the surrounding arid country. The Virgin River’s perennial
waters give life to an overstory of Fremont
cottonwood, singleleaf ash, and boxelder.
The rare Zion snail lives only in Zion’s isolated
hanging gardens that grow lush with maidenhair fern, scarlet monkeyflower, and golden
columbine. Canyon treefrogs bleat while
campers sleep, and great blue herons wade
the river’s currents. When summer monsoons
send flash floods roaring down canyon, it’s
a testimony to evolution that anything
survives.
Part of Zion’s uniqueness comes from its geology. Great Basin and Mojave Desert soils tend
to be similar over great distances. But Zion’s
stacked prehistoric environments erode into
many soils. The Chinle Formation’s ancient
lakes and volcanic ash, for example, corrode
into a soil rich in the poisonous mineral selenium. Specialized plants like prince’s plume
and milkvetch (also known as locoweed from
the effects of its selenium-infused leaves)
grow on such odd soils and increase Zion’s
diversity. Individual and unconnected canyons
also increase diversity because isolation can
lead to variation among species.
RIM
© MERlIN TUTTlE, BAT CONSERVATION INTERNATIONAl
Water, and the lack of it, decides what grows
where. On the plateau, above the canyon rim,
annual precipitation tops 26 inches. In this relatively cool and moist environment, sego lilies sprout under greenleaf manzanita, yellowbellied marmots scurry between white fir, and
elk mix with an occasional black bear. Here
the Virgin River begins in an underground
cavern of melted snow.
At the lowest elevations, Mojave Desert species—desert tortoise and honey mesquite—
infiltrate Zion’s dry, south-facing canyons. At
mid-elevations, Great Basin Desert species like
shadscale and big sagebrush mingle with the
Colorado Plateau’s bigtooth maple and Utah
juniper. Zion’s biotic diversity is the result of
these three communities coming together in
one location.
ROBERT POTTS © CAlIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
Tucked in niches, hidden in soil, peeking from
cliffs, or scampering between our feet, an
amazing array of plants and animals thrive in
Zion National Park. Tiny piñon mice, golden
eagles, mountain lions—all thrive in Zion’s
many habitats. Park elevations range from
3,600 to 8,700 feet and provide vastly different environments. Fir, ponderosa pine, and
aspen prefer snowy highcountry winters,
while piñon, cliffrose, and mesquite flourish
in the desert’s heat.
DR. llOYD GlENN INGlES
© CAlIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCE
The Nature of Sanctuary
Fremont cottonwood
A crack in Navajo sandstone
affords a home for this
blooming Indian paintbrush
(background photo).
Maidenhair fern
Be Prepared, Plan Well, Live Long
NPS
© wIllIAM NEIll / lARRY UlRICH STOCk
A human body is no match
for floodwaters that rampage through narrow canyons, pushing a raft of
boulders and logs (left).
Know the weather and
flash flood potential before
your trip. If bad weather
threatens, do not enter
narrow canyons.
15
Kolob Canyons
Visitor Center
• Plan your trip. Choose trails that are within your ability.
• Falls cause most injuries and deaths at Zion.
• Carry and drink one gallon of water per person per day.
• wear a hat, sunglasses, and sunscreen.
• Avoid or get off high places when lightning threatens.
• know the weather before you go. Distant storms can cause fash foods.
when in doubt, stay out!
• Cell phones don’t work in most areas and don’t make you invincible.
• Your safety is your responsibility.
La
v
Wilderness
In 2009, Congress protected nearly 84 percent of
the park as wilderness under the 1964 wilderness
Act. wilderness designation protects forever the
land’s wilderness character, natural conditions,
opportunities for solitude, and scientifc, educational, and historical values.
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17
9
Visiting the Park
9
Zion Human History Museum
Zion Canyon Visitor Center
9
9
59
Zion Canyon Visitor Center is open year-round. A 22-minute
orientation flm is shown regularly at the Zion Human History
Museum. Spring through fall, Zion Canyon Scenic Drive is
open to shuttle buses only. Check the park website (see below) or the park newspapers for dates and times: Map and
Guide and Backcountry Planner are available at the entrance
gate, visitor centers, and on the park website. Service animals are welcome. For frearms regulations visit the park
website or ask a ranger.
Zion is one of over 390 parks in the National Park System. To
learn more about parks and National Park Service programs
in America’s communities, visit www.nps.gov.
More Information
Zion National Park
Springdale, Utah 84767-1099
435-772-3256
www.nps.gov/zion
✩GPO:20xx—xxx-xxx/xxxxx Reprint 20xx
Printed on recycled paper.