Millions of people hike along the towering sandstone cliffs and rippling Virgin River in Zion National Park each year.
As visitation booms, the federal government is considering a timed entry system for the country’s second busiest national park — a proposal that Utah leaders want off the table.
“We strongly urge you to reject this restrictive management tool and instead work with state and local officials to address challenges,” Utah’s congressional delegation wrote in a letter to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum in August.
The park has been developing a visitor management plan since 2016. In anticipation of a possible draft plan this year, the Washington County Commission on Tuesday passed a resolution expressing opposition to a reservation system at Zion.
“Before that is finalized, we wanted to be on the record to say that we think we can address some of the visitor management and capacity issues with other tools that don’t limit people — the citizens of America — coming in and enjoying their park,” said Washington County Commissioner Adam Snow.
As visitation has increased, so have lines at entry gates, cars clogging up gateway towns, emergency calls, damage to natural and cultural resources and complaints from visitors, according to the park’s visitation research.
“The planning process aims to balance visitor access with the protection of park resources, and input from partners and the public will continue to help inform its development,” park spokesman Matthew Fink said in a statement.
(David Condos | KUER) Hikers on Zion National Park’s Riverside Trail, which leads to The Narrows, Apr. 10, 2025.
Economic impact
The National Park Service estimated that Zion generated nearly a billion dollars in economic output for surrounding gateway communities in 2023.
“Everybody’s job in Washington County is somehow tied to Zion National Park,” Snow said at the commission meeting on Tuesday. ”About a 10th of our economy is generated from the first time spending at Zion.”
In its letter to the Interior Department, Utah’s congressional delegation said Grand County saw a drop in tourist spending after Arches National Park implemented a pilot timed entry system in 2022.
“Should Zion’s gateway communities see similar effects from the reservation system as Grand County, it would equate to an annual loss of almost $128 million,” the congressional delegation said.
A reservation system may not guarantee the region will lose tourism dollars, though. A report commissioned by the National Park Service found that the reservation system in Arches had no statistically significant impact on the local economy.
That study also found that national parks without timed entry systems saw similar drops in visitations in 2022, which may have been related to factors such as gasoline prices or declines in international tourists.
“We see visitation numbers go up and down in parks with reservation systems and without reservation systems,” said Cory MacNulty, southwest region campaign director with the National Parks Conservation Association. “It is really complex.”
More visitors and less staff in a small park
Visitation to Zion increased by nearly 90% between 2010 and 2024, according to the park service. “It’s probably hard to find a park that has had a more dramatic increase in visitation in such a short amount of time,” Fink said.
While visitation has spiked, personnel has dwindled. Over that same time period, full-time staff at Zion dropped from 184 to 164, the park service reported.
Staffing remains an ongoing issue. Since President Donald Trump took office, national parks across the nation, including Zion, have endured staffing shortages, according to an internal park service report surfaced by the National Parks Conservation Association in July.
Zion reported reduced personnel to maintain restrooms, concession operations, fee entrance stations and emergency services, including search and rescue and firefighting.
A search and rescue team assists a park visitor injured on a trail at Zion National Park in Utah, Aug. 18, 2025. The park's search and rescue team is about 10 percent smaller than it was a year ago.
“Less capacity to respond to visitors having an emergency can result in serious medical complications, loss of facilities due to fire, threats to public safety,” the report said. “With the volume of visitation at Zion, it’s not uncommon to have multiple emergencies happening at once.”
Zion welcomed 4.9 million people last year, making it the second most visited park in the nation. Yet, Zion must manage millions of visitors in a much smaller area than other popular parks. It’s only 148,016 acres, and 84% of that land is designated wilderness. Grand Canyon National Park, the third most popular park last year, is 1.2 million acres. Yellowstone National Park, the fourth most visited, is 2.2 million acres.
As more visitors crowd into a relatively small area, particularly concentrating in the narrow Zion Canyon where shuttles run, a reservation system may give some tourists security.
“It creates certainty for visitors so they know when they travel from far — sometimes across the world — that they know that the day that they’re going to visit, they can actually get into the park,” said MacNulty. “They can experience the park, they can find parking, they can get on the trails and have a really positive experience without the crowding and congestion.”
In Arches, research shows that the timed entry system has been popular. Utah State University and the National Park Service surveyed parkgoers and found that visitor experience improved during the program’s first year.
Other ways to manage visitation
The state, county and surrounding towns have partnered with the park to improve visitor experience without a reservation system, Snow said. The state has appropriated $18 million to extend a sewer line and trail through Zion Canyon and contributed $15 million to create a Discovery Center on the east side of the park.
(Mark Eddington | The Salt Lake Tribune) Utah Tourism Director Vicki Varela and Utah Gov. Spencer Cox plant indigenous plants to celebrate the beginning of construction of the Zion National Park Discovery Center. Tuesday, Aug. 22, 2023.
In collaboration with Southern Utah University, the county has also proposed creating an app that would give visitors real time data on parking lots, trail congestion and more. Developing the app and installing the hardware would cost at least $1.2 million, Snow told The Tribune, but the county is willing to foot the bill if the park agrees to not implement a reservation system.
Overall, the county wants more time to work with the park service on other solutions.
“If we fail, if it doesn’t work and we didn’t solve it enough, then we’ll know that, hey, there is no other solution that would work other than a reservation system,” Snow said. “You gotta give us enough time.”
Zion has already implemented several strategies to manage increased visitation. Since it began developing a visitor management plan in 2016, the park has expanded parking at the Zion Canyon Visitor Center, reconfigured the south entrance station for improved traffic flow, implemented a pilot reservation program for Angels Landing and more.
“The timed entry system,” MacNulty said, “is a piece of the puzzle.”