U.S. park considers reservations

SALT LAKE CITY — It would be a first for a U.S. national park: Requiring reservations to get in. But it’s an option that Utah’s Zion National Park is considering to manage an overwhelming surge of visitors to its sweeping red-rock vistas and canyons.

Zion, which welcomed 4.3 million people last year, is weighing online reservations for those who want to explore its main canyon. National Park Service rangers struggle to cope with overcrowded tour buses and to alleviate damage to Zion’s natural wonders that includes soil erosion and human waste near trails.

People without reservations could pay an entrance fee and drive through the park, but they couldn’t stop to hike or picnic.

“We have to do something,” said park spokesman John Marciano. With limited budgets, Zion’s Park Service rangers routinely see long lines and plants trampled by visitors who have also cut about 50 kilometres of their own trails.

Zion isn’t the only U.S. national park with swelling numbers of tourists, and at least two national parks, in California and Hawaii, are testing more limited reservation systems for parking.

Overall, more than 330 million people visited U.S. national parks in 2016, a record. Visits were bolstered by the improving economy, cheap gas and marketing campaigns for the National Park Service’s 2016 centennial.

Zion is the fifth mostvisited park in the U.S. National Park system. It’s particularly susceptible to overcrowding because many of its iconic cliffs and trails are located in the narrow Zion Canyon.