Zion National Park Backcountry Permit Data Analysis

Thanks to the Park for releasing information on backcountry usage for the last few years. I have worked through the data to try to better understand what the pattern of usage in the Zion Backcountry has been.

The information from 2001 was the most complete, so most of the information is based on that. Here are some interesting charts and bits of information gleaned from the data available. Each link opens in a seperate window:

1998-2002 Permits by Canyon
2001 Permitted User-Days by Activity
2001 Backcountry Usage by Canyon

2001 Group Size per Permit
2001 User Days per Permit
2001 Permits by Month

Mystery Canyon Usage by Day
 

To further your research, here are a variety of documents from Zion National Park, the National Park Service and other credible sources. Most documents are PDF files. Files over 500 kilobytes (0.5 MB) are noted.

The Visitor Experience and Resource Protection (VERP) Handbook (1.1 MB) This is the process ZNP will use to determine backcountry policies such as use limits.

Backcountry Permit Statistics - 1998 (1.1 MB), 1999 (1.8 MB), 2000 (1.7 MB), 2001 (1.6 MB), 2002 Statistics (810 KB) & 2002 Report, 2003 (2.6 MB), 2004 Statistics (2.6 MB) & 2004 Report (1.8 MB),

Day use of Behunin, Mystery & Kolob in June (2001-2003)

Excerpts from the Superintendent's Annual Report - 2000, 2001, 2002

Zion Search and Rescue (SAR) reports: Rescues 1999-2004 (4.0 MB), Searches 1999-2002
Zion SAR Annual Incident reports, 1999-2002

Zion National Park, General Management Plan (GMP): Full PDF (8.1 MB), "lite" PDF (no maps, appendices, or full-page images - 2.2 MB), Text only (285 KB)

Day Use Backcountry Survey, 2002

The relationship between Solitude, Wilderness, and the Visitor Experience has been studied extensively. Here are some papers you might find interesting:

Academic Research