Zion National Park
Zion National Park is an American national park located in southwestern Utah near the town of Springdale. Located at the junction of the Colorado Plateau, Great Basin, and Mojave Desert regions, the park has a unique geography and a variety of life zones that allow for unusual plant and animal diversity. A prominent feature of the 229-square-mile park is Zion Canyon, which is 15 miles long and up to 2,640 ft deep.
About Zion National Park in brief
Zion National Park is an American national park located in southwestern Utah near the town of Springdale. Located at the junction of the Colorado Plateau, Great Basin, and Mojave Desert regions, the park has a unique geography and a variety of life zones that allow for unusual plant and animal diversity. A prominent feature of the 229-square-mile park is Zion Canyon, which is 15 miles long and up to 2,640 ft deep. The lowest point in the park is 3,666 ft at Coalpits Wash and the highest peak is 8,726 ft at Horse Ranch Mountain. Numerous plant species as well as 289 species of birds, 75 mammals, and 32 reptiles inhabit the park’s four life zones: desert, riparian, woodland, and coniferous forest. The geology of the Zion and Kolob canyons area includes nine formations that together represent 150 million years of mostly Mesozoic-aged sedimentation. The entire area of Zion Canyon features a slot canyon called The Kolob Terrace, which features a panoramic view of the entire park. The park features Checkerboard Mesa and East Temple Terrace. The east side of park is served by Mount Carmel Highway, which passes through the Zion–Mount Carmel Tunnel and ends at the Zion Temple of Sinawava, named for the coyote god of the Paiute Indians. The road into Zion Canyon is 6 miles long, ending at the Temple ofSinawava. The canyon becomes more narrow near the Temple and a hiking trail continues to the mouth of Narrows, a gorge only 20 feet wide and 2,000 feet tall.
The Zion Canyon area can be reached by a free shuttle bus from early April to late October and by late October the other months of the year. Other roads in Zion are open to private vehicles in the summer and fall and include Zion Canyon Road, Zion Canyon Trail, and Zion Canyon Bridge. The highest point in park is the 6,000-foot summit of Horse ranch Mountain, and the lowest point is Coal Pits Wash, creating a relief of about 5,100 feet. Streams in the area take rectangular paths because they follow jointing planes in the rocks. The stream gradient of the Virgin River, whose North Fork flows through the park, ranges from 50 to 80 feet per mile —one of the steepest stream gradients in North America. Uplift associated with the creation of the Colorado Plateau lifted the region 10,000ft starting 13 million years ago. Mormons came into the area in 1858 and settled there in the early 1860s. In 1909, President William Howard Taft named the area Mukuntuweap National Monument in order to protect the canyon. In 1918, the acting director of the newly created National Park Service, Horace Albright, drafted a proposal to enlarge the existing monument and change the park’s name to Zion National Monument, Zion being a term used by the Mormons.
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This page is based on the article Zion National Park published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 03, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
