Utah's top three national parks--Zion, Arches and Bryce Canyon--are located in the Colorado Plateau, an area that includes most of Utah, northern Arizona, and portions of Colorado and New Mexico. These national parks are all wonders of nature, which were formed by deposits of rock built up for hundreds of thousands of years. Over time, earthquakes uplifted the rock layers, and rivers eroded them, resulting in magnificent canyons, spires, buttes and mesas.
Zion National Park had close to three million visitors in 2009. Inhabited originally by Ancestral Puebloans, the park was named by the Mormon farmers who settled in the area in the 1860s. It became Utah's first national park in 1919.
Visitors enter the park through a valley floor surrounded by massive, sandstone cliffs in shades of cream, pink and red. The valley gradually narrows into slot canyons with fantastic shapes and colors. The Virgin River runs through the valley, fringed by cottonwood trees. With all its wonders, Zion National Park is a must-see American treasure.
Zion National Park
Springdale, Utah 84767-1099
435-772-3256
nps.gov/zion/index.htm
Containing over 2,000 sandstone arches, Arches National Park was designated a national monument in 1929 by President Herbert Hoover, and it became a national park in 1971. Delicate Arch, perhaps the park's most photographed arch, sits alone on a rocky slab high in the park, and it draws hundred of visitors each day, especially at sunrise and sunset. Landscape Arch, measuring 306 feet from side to side, is the longest arch in the Park.
Arches National Park
P.O. Box 907
Moab, Utah 84532-0907
435-719-2299
nps.gov/arch/index.htm
Layer upon layer of pink, purple and cream towering spires characterize Bryce Canyon National Park. These geological formations, called hoodoos, were formed from deposits of rocks, clays and silts, which were compressed millions of years ago after earthquakes lifted segments of the land. The Paria River system eroded the formations, and seasons of freezing and expanding water trapped in the hoodoos caused chunks of rocks to fall off the structures, eroding them even more.
Bryce Canyon National Park
P.O. Box 640201
Byrce Canyon, Utah 84764-0201
435-834-5322
nps.gov/brca/index.htm
