Zion National Park

Zion National Park

Utah's first national park, began its public lands life in 1909 as Munkuntuweap National Monument.

In 1919, the monument status was changed to park status by President Wilson and the official name was changed to Zion.

The Zion title was a reference to the name the Mormons called the area when they first settled it on orders from Brigham Young.

When the church prophet rejected the name the settlers had given the area, telling them it wasn't Zion, they briefly called it "Not Zion."

While Indians were afraid of being overcome by darkness in Zion's deep canyons with towering walls and steep cliffs, there is evidence that prehistoric people once farmed near the area's creeks and rivers.

Remains of their dwellings have also been found perched high on the walls of the canyon, like the nests of swallows. The location gave them protection from their enemies.

It was Maj. John W. Powell, who visited the canyon area in 1872, who gave it the Indian name that was used when the area was first named a monument.

He named the north fork Munkuntuweap and the east fork Parunuweap.

A realm of rock temples and cathedrals in blazing earthern reds, rusts and pinks, names were given to specific sites with churchly connotations, like Angel's Landing, Towers of the Virgin, The Patriarch, The Guardian and the Great White Throne.

The latter, in recent years, has become a playground for rock climbers who may spend several days creeping up to the top of the well-recognized rock cliff.

In recent years, the number of visitors to the park has grown so fast that private cars are banned from Zion Canyon, which is the starting point for the majority of the park's major hikes.

Visitors will have to view the canyon from shuttle vehicles or as hikers or bicyclists.

This year, the park also instituted a entry and reservation check-in for the Watchman Campground.

One of the man-made wonders at Zion is the 1.1-mile-long tunnel cut through rock in the 1920s , which connects the west entrance to the east entrance.

The first dynamite blast in constructing the tunnel took place on Nov. 8, 1927. The tunnel was dedicated on July 4th, 1930.

In earlier days, the cars going through the low, narrow tunnel were smaller and fewer. There were even places when visitors could pull over and look out huge windows at the park's spectacular scenery.

An old-timer who lived in the area during that period also remembers playing in the tunnels.

"What was really fun was to jump out and scream as a car passed by," he said.

Today, the tunnel is monitored 24 hours a day, and because of the increase in the size of vehicles and the many recreational vehicles that pass through the park traffic is usually limited to passing through the tunnel in one direction at a time.

But park officials have said the rock-carved tunnel will be around for a long time to come certainly into the next millennium.

1. Zion National Park was created in ?

1909
1929
1990
1919

2. John Wesley Powell gave the name ____ to the east fork of the canyons.

Havasupai
Parunuweap
Munkuntuweap
The Great White Throne

3. A man made wonder in the park is the ? .

statue to John Wesley Powell
shuttle
bridge
tunnel

4. What was recently banned from the park?

cars
smoking
camping
hiking

5. The Zion National Park tunnel was dedicated in ?

1920
1930
1940
1950

Your score is out of 5.