Zion National Park surpasses park history visitation with more than 5 million visitors

SPRINGDALE, Utah (ABC4/ KDXU) – Zion National Park broke another record, this time with over 5 million visits in 2021, the most in park history. But with record breaking numbers comes new challenges, according to National Park Service leaders.

Landscapes, plants, animals and history.

It’s what you expect when visiting Zion National Park, but it’s also something being affected by a record breaking number of tourists. Last year, they saw more than 5,039,835 visits.

“We used 5,300 miles of toilet paper, which is enough to stretch from San Francisco to Washington D.C. and almost back,” says Jeff Bradybaugh, the park superintendent.

They’re addressing increasing pressure on park resources, its 177 full-time employees and 180 volunteers, as well as a significant infrastructure maintenance backlog.

“Last year, we had more than 130 search and rescue operations and nearly 400 emergency medical incidents,” says Bradybaugh.

Park officials are collecting data on visitor use, testing potential solutions, in hopes to keep up with growing visitation, like the Angels Landing Pilot Permit Program that started this year.

“And we hope that that’s going to spread people out over time up on Angels Landing, which as you know can be very congested, very busy and we’ve been concerned about that in terms of visitor experience and safety for a number of years,” Bradybaugh.

NPS is expected to share updates on their research and get feedback from visitors by the end of this year.

If you’re interested in the Angels Landing Lottery, park officials say they will be issuing additional permits everyday starting on March 31 in their day-before lottery. For more on that click here.