Deseret News – How to celebrate Zion National Park’s 100th birthday

by Katie Walker

On Nov. 19, people will have been flocking from far and wide to see the high plateaus, soaring sandstone cliffs, desert wilderness and slot canyons in Zion National Park for 100 years.

And now, it is time to celebrate.

In the 1860s, Latter-day Saint settlers began to populate the area, calling it “Zion,” a biblical term meaning “a place of peace and refuge or sanctuary.”

“To them, Zion meant a place of safety, a place of sanctuary, and Zion is truly a sanctuary,” Mike Large, a park ranger at Zion, said in an interview with the Deseret News. “It’s a sanctuary for geology, for wildlife, for human history; it’s a sanctuary for people seeking to get away from the outside world and find a nice, quiet place.”

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