Sprawling graffiti plagues Zion National Park as visitation booms, video shows

Vandals keep defacing parts of the country’s second most popular national park, rangers said.

More than 5 million people visited Zion National Park in Utah in 2021, according to the National Park Service. It overtook Yellowstone as the country’s second most-visited national park. Only Great Smoky Mountains National Park sees more tourists.

The increase in visitation has brought more than foot traffic to the national park, however.

Park rangers said they have been spending dozens of hours scrubbing graffiti from the park landscape.

“Rangers and Volunteers in Zion have been spending hours cleaning unnecessary vandalism in the park such as rock carvings and scratches, stickers, permanent markers, and spray paint,” park rangers said Friday, April 15 on Facebook. “Not only is graffiti unsightly, it damages natural and cultural resources that the park protects.”

Video shows blue spray paint spanning the iconic canyon walls. In one part of the park, rangers found 150 feet of graffiti that took them 35 hours to clean and repair.

The park rangers and volunteers used sandpaper to carefully scrub the paint from the rock.

“We had to be very careful when sanding not to cause any further damage by scraping or breaking off too much of the rock,” rangers said. “This rock was also covered in lichens, which we had to work around in order to not kill or damage.”

Many of the rocks at Zion National Park are sedimentary rocks whose layers were deposited between 110 million and 270 million years ago, park officials said.

This isn’t the first time the national park has scrubbed vandalism from the park. Since the pandemic began, park rangers have been seeing an increase in graffiti through the park as more people head outdoors.

In 2020, park rangers found six bright blue squares painted on sandstone as part of what officials believed to be a masonry or art project. The boxes were about 3 feet by 3 feet.

Months later, blue spray paint and muddy handprints were found splattered against sandstone. Names were also found carved into logs and alcoves.

Vandalism on public lands is illegal and punishable by 6 months in prison or a $5,000 fine, according to Zion park rangers.

“We are asking you to do your part in protecting your national parks for future generations and leave no trace when you are visiting,” park rangers said. “Take only pictures, leave only footprints.”

This story was originally published April 15, 2022 at 11:58 AM with the headline "Sprawling graffiti plagues Zion National Park as visitation booms, video shows."