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The Ultimate Southwest Vacation includes Zion National Park, Utah!

Stay in Mount Carmel Junction, the heart of the parks, and visit the treasures of the Southwest.

Zion Park 12 miles
Grand Staircase 9 miles
Sand Dunes 11 miles
Dixie Forest 22 miles
Cedar Breaks 45 miles
Red Canyon 47 miles
Coyote Butte 57 miles
Bryce Canyon 60 miles
North Rim 85 miles
Toroweap 90 miles

In these pages you will find insiders information on Zion National Park lodging, adventures and hikes. This detailed guide includes road maps, park maps, pictures, trail beta, backpacking, history, fees, geology, flora, fauna, campgrounds, things for kids to do and even information on Zion's hidden treasures.

Making summer memories in the Utah National Parks and National Monuments.

Utah!

Zion National Park Map

Directions to Zion National Park
From Salt Lake City: Travel I-15 south, past Beaver. Exit on Hwy 20. Follow US-89 to Mount Carmel Junction. Take U-9 to Zion's east entrance.
From Arizona: Travel 89A through Fredonia, Arizona and Kanab Utah. Follow US-89 to to Mount Carmel Junction. Take U-9 to the east park entrance.
From Las Vegas: Travel I-15 north. Take exit 16 and travel through Hurricane. Make a right on U-9 at the second traffic light in LaVerkin. Continue on U-9 to the south entrance of the park. U-9 through Zion National Park is always open and is also called the Zion-Mt. Carmel Highway.

Oversized Vehicle Information
Zion Canyon Shuttle Information

Zion Photo: The geological wonder, Checkerboard Mesa, is located along Scenic Byway 9 in Zion National Park. All public roads in Zion are open year-round and are either accessed by shuttle or your private vehicle.

Deep furrows have been cut, like a checkerboard, taking millions of years to carve in the Navajo sandstone. The horizontal furrows were cut during the Jurassic period by wind-blown sands of the huge ancient sand dunes that spread out over the land in place of the massive monoliths you see in Zion National Park today. A freeze and thaw process is responsible for gradually widening the furrows along vertical joints. Notice that the carvings are always on the north side where snow takes longer to melt. The vertical slits were formed much later after brittle rock had formed. There are etched patterns on smaller surfaces in the park, such as along the East Rim and Hidden Gardens. Past the east side of the park along Highway 89 between Kanab and Glendale, Utah, there is also evidence of crossbedding.

Zion National Park Geology

The on-going geology of Zion National Park

Zion National Park is part of a vast picture; one that includes the other parks and monuments in the area. Looking on a topo map will reveal that Zion Park is located on the western edge of the Colorado Plateau. Also scattered about the Colorado Plateau is Bryce Canyon, Grand Canyon and Cedar Breaks which all form together to create the five steps and risers of the Grand Staircase.

Over 200 million years ago the area where Zion National Park is today was a desert basin. Over vast amounts of time the mountains there eroded. The material was carried by slow moving streams and rivers and laid down in the vast basin, filling it with sand. Time passed and the sea covered the dunes as the environment changed. Calcium carbonate cemented loose grains of sand making hard sandstone. It turned the seabed to limestone and mud and clay to mudstone and shale, forming the sweeping diagonal cross-bedding that Zion National Park is famous for.

The basin lowered due to the weight of the deposits. More time passed and the earth shifted and forced the plateau up, slowly and irregularly as the sea drained away. Streams flowed over the edge of the plateau giving them the power to move debris at a great rate. This carved Zion Canyon by vertical retreat of the canyon walls. Oddly, this occurred in an area where the Navajo sandstone was at it's (2000'/610m) thickest. Today, the North Fork of the Virgin River continues to move debris and erode the canyon, moving an average of 5000 tons of rock fragments daily. Although consistent efforts by the river does some of the work, it is flash flooding that is powerful to make drastic changes. In fact ninety-percent of the carving is from flash floods. A large flood can result in 9000 cubic ft. of water per second raging down the Virgin River. 70 cubic ft. per second is normal. The result is that Zion Canyon is getting deeper at a rate of 600' per million years

The rock formations at Zion National Park are still changing today. Slowly, over time, the great monoliths you see will return to the great sand dunes from where they were born in ancient days. The forces of nature make their way through layers of sedimentary rock every day of our future, just as they have in our past. The largest monolith in the world, the Great White Throne, will be reduced to layers of sand.

Entering Zion National Park from the east side, one of the first sites to catch the eye is Checkerboard Mesa. The east section of Zion National Park is known as "slick rock" country. This side of the park is a place where the rocks are a mixture of white and varied tints of brown or orange. This is a result of minimal iron-oxide compared to other layers of sandstone. The slickrock section of Zion National Park showcases the powerful effects of erosion over a great period of time.

The geology of Zion National Park transforms dramatically when moving from the east section of the park through Zion's long tunnel. The 1.1 mile long tunnel was blasted and cut in the thick Navajo sandstone during early 1900s. Imagine cutting through 2000' thick sandstone with the machinery available at that time. In those days the whole process was considered a technological wonder. The Zion-Mt. Carmel Tunnel was a network of scaffolding, set up on the east side of the tunnel, across Pine Creek which flows below. Blasting was used to enlarge the hole and railcars hauled off the debris. On the tunnel's south side, working on the tunnel was not any easy task because the drop off to the canyon below is 800'. It is amazing that in the 1930s, this sort of engineering was accomplished.

The hoodoos on the east side of Zion National park are whimsical rock formations twisted and manipulated into various shapes and sizes. The hoodoos of Zion Park are much different than the more uniform hoodoos of Cedar Breaks and Bryce Canyon.

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For myself I hold no preferences among flowers, so long as they are wild, free, spontaneous. Bricks to all greenhouses! Black thumb and cutworm to the potted plant! -Edward Abbey In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous -- Aristotle Photo: Pine Creek Waterfall © Photography by Tanya

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