Zion National Park is being loved to death.
Zion is one of the most loved parks in America’s national park system with tourists traveling from all regions of the globe to experience firsthand its breathtaking canyons and stunning clifftop vistas. Zion has seen record visitation for four of the past five years with more than 4.3 million visitors entering the park in 2016. Visitation in 2017 is on par to meet or exceed 2016’s numbers. Visitation to Zion has increased 60 percent since 2007.
The result is overcrowded trails, traffic congestion on the roads and an overburdened infrastructure.
Witnessing the overcrowded, overburdened park and its facilities has the park superintendent and other park managers are considering capping the amount of visitors they allow into the park each year, which could result in the park moving to a reservation system.    
A press release issued in early July stated the park’s shuttles are routinely over capacity. The shuttles, which have 68 seats, are commonly filled with more than 90 passengers. Vehicle traffic often backs up along roadways into Springdale. Trails and campgrounds are seeing wear and tear occur faster than the park has funds or manpower to repair. Park rangers are responding to an increased number of emergencies, and their response time is being slowed down by the congested roads and trails. In addition, park managers have observed and recorded increased trampling of off-trail vegetation, which has led directly to increased soil erosion. Park managers estimate that 30 miles of visitor-created trails have occurred in the last six years.
“Given these changes and the likelihood that interest in visiting the park will continue to increase, a plan is needed to determine how to provide a quality, enjoyable and safe visitor experience while protecting the park’s fundamental resources and values,” said John Marciana, PIO for Zion National Park.
To address the issue of overcrowding, park officials have created a Visitor Use Management (VUM) plan which lists three options the park could take as they move forward. The purpose of the VUM plan is to identify strategies and actions for managing visitor use and access, primarily focused on the park’s front country areas — particularly Zion Canyon, but also the Kolob Terraces and Kolob Canyon — where issue are most acute.

Alternative A: No
changes at this time

The first option is to make no changes to their existing model, which would continue to allow in as many visitors as wanted to experience the park. According to a recent press release, park staff would continue to take action to address resource impacts and manage for a quality visitor experience, management would continue to be reactionary, responding as needed, from place to place and situation to situation. No new holistic, systematic park-wide approach to managing increasing visitor use levels would occur under this alternative.
Natural and cultural resources and visitor experience would continue to be degraded especially where high, concentrated and increasing visitation levels are expected.

Alternative B: Establish a visitor reservation
system to enter the park
Under Alternative B, park managers would take a proactive approach to carrying out their desired conditions and management direction by responding to congestion and crowding in the park through the establishment of an online year-round reservation system. The number of reservations issued would be based on front country visitor capacity levels by the park.
According to the press release, this concept is intended to reduce crowding and congestion at popular destinations, improve the visitors’ experience and reduce impacts that are occurring to the park’s natural and cultural resource. Visitors would have to show their reservation permit before they could enter the park.

Alternative C: permit  required to hike   
certain trails
Under Alternative C, all visitors could enter the park, but they would need a permit to hike the park’s most popular and crowded trails and attractions.
Under this alternative the permits would also be given using an online, year-round reservation system. Park managers believe that by reducing the number of visitors to the park’s most popular sites they could manage the impact on the trails’ natural and cultural resources.
Park managers want public input helping decide which alternative they choose. The public is encouraged to comment on these alternatives and identify any advantages, disadvantages, issues and concerns. The deadline to voice your input is Aug. 14. You can review the proposed plans and provide your comments at http://parkplanning.nps.gov/zion
You may also mail your comments to the planning team at park headquarters.
Attn: Visitor Use Planning Team
Zion National Park
State Route 9
Springdale, UT 84767-1099