Zion National Park's New Addition to Help Visitors Slow Down and Ease Pressure on Crowded Areas
About 2.5 miles from the East entrance, just inside the Southern entrance, excavators and bulldozers are hauling mounds of soil against the backdrop of forested hills that encircle the Zion National Park in Southern Utah. Along Highway 9, near western Kane County, colossal wooden beams are being lifted to support a vaulted ceiling that would soon become a cavernous room. Now that the construction is almost over, the whirring of machines has quietened down over the past two years. Soon, a building called the Zion Discovery Center will materialize from this construction. Ornamented with metal roofs, clerestory windows, and striking porch hangings, the center is being designed to “slow visitors down,” as Zion Forever Project chief Natalie Britt shared with FOX13 News.
Established over a century ago, Zion National Park was Utah’s first national park. Sculpted by years of sedimentation, rock falls, and dramatic volcanic activity, the park is a storybook carved in time. With millions of visitors stopping by Zion each year, officials noticed the emergence of a common crowd pattern. While the west side of the park remained crowded and so did the south side, the eastern side remained neglected and deserted, used mostly for its fee gate. The persistent quietude led officials to believe that the east side had nothing significant or interesting to offer, which is why they initiated the construction of the discovery center on the doorstep of Springdale.
As shared by St. George News, the park conducted a ceremony on August 22, 2023, marking the initiation of the “discovery center” project. The center would tell visitors the stories of the park's lands and the animals that live there. In conversation with KUER, Zion Superintendent Jeff Bradybaugh said, “We love having our visitors.” They, he added, intend to provide visitors with the opportunity of absorbing “different perspectives, different recreational opportunities” while also supporting them to relieve stress imposed by an overcrowded setting.
The center, according to Bradybaugh, will be a hub for more than 35 miles of mountain biking trails and 20 miles of hiking trails, with patches of agricultural activities that would illustrate how food is being grown in the area. It will also feature a launch point of a new shuttle service, likely with zero-emission electric vehicles. A Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute study even estimated that the development of Zion’s east side would open up 451 jobs in Kane County and 4.4 million dollars in state and local tax revenue. Not to mention that the park will offer educational opportunities for children to wade in the stream.
Britt also pointed out how the center will push people to slow down and interact with the landscape of the park, especially due to the region's limited cell service. If construction goes on schedule, the center should open by late 2026, Bradybaugh estimated. Once it unlocks its doors for the visitors, the park will, after so long, regain its stabilized, balanced, evenly distributed state, recovering from the lopsided scatterings.
More on Green Matters
Zion National Park Visitors Are ‘Inspired’ After Reading These Orange Signboards Across the Park
Traveler Visits Nearly Every US National Park — and He Thinks One of Them Is Quite Underrated