Free Republic

Utah authorities are trying to determine if the hiker concocted the tale about going missing to defraud people donating to GoFundMe Holly Courtier, the mom who supposedly went missing for 12 days in Utah’s Zion Park, is now the subject of a criminal probe, Crime Online reports. On October 18, the 38-year-old mom turned up alive and unharmed in the park. In the days since, park and law enforcement officials have heavily scrutinized Holly Courtier’s claims that she had gone missing and somehow managed to survive on her own for nearly two weeks. For example, while Holly Courtier’s family has...

Officials at Zion National Park are grappling with unprecedented amounts of graffiti throughout the park as visitors continue to flock to the canyon. Fagergren said that rangers are dealing with a twofold problem as they try to manage the graffiti. First, the park is seeing a new type of visitor, one who may have never visited a national park before and may only be venturing out as a result of being cooped up due to the pandemic. They are different visitors than we normally get,” Fagergren said, adding that many of them don’t have the same affinity for public lands...

A 13-year-old girl fell to her death from a popular narrow trail bordered by steep drops at Zion National Park, officials said Tuesday. The Utah girl was hiking with family when she tumbled from the Angel's Landing Trail on Monday evening, park ranger John Marciano said. She was quickly discovered by hikers on the West Rim Trail below. Angel's Landing was closed Tuesday morning to investigate the fall from the path that ascends some 1,500 feet (457 meters) above the southern Utah park's red-rock cliffs. There has been about one death each of the last two

ZION NATIONAL PARK — A major rock fall closed state Route 9 in Zion National Park early Wednesday morning and is expected to remain closed into the weekend. The large rocks fell on the highway about 4:30 a.m. about 200 feet from the Pine Creek Bridge on a switchback near the Mount Carmel Tunnel, according to park officials. The largest boulder is around 19 feet high, 20 feet long and 15 feet wide and officials said it weighs around 200 tons. The second boulder measured at approximately 10 feet high, 10 feet long and 15 feet wide, weighing about 100...

Tax-paying, hard-working families aren’t letting White House shutdown politics stop them from enjoying America’s beauty. They’re defying the orange cones at Mount Rushmore. They’re breaching the barrycades at Zion National Park. And now, the Badlands of South Dakota. Noelle Bruno tweets that she and her family made it through Mount Rushmore despite the White House obstacles:

The southern Utah site of a wagon train massacre was dedicated Sunday as a national historic landmark 154 years to the day after the tragedy occurred. About 350 people watched as Zion National Park Superintendent Jock Whitworth presented plaques to mark the Mountain Meadows Massacre Historic Site 30 miles north of St. George. The 760-acre site is where 120 members of an Arkansas wagon train were shot and killed by a Mormon militia on Sept. 11, 1857. The Baker-Fancher wagon train stopped in the meadows on its way to California when it was attacked. Government officials, church leaders and descendants...

Business owners near the east entrance to Zion National Park will get some relief: Work on a $6 million road project will now be done at night. For the fourth time in less than three weeks, the construction schedule of the Zion-Mount Carmel road project has been changed, this time to accommodate Kane County business owners. Last week, business owners and elected officials met with the park superintendent to complain they were losing money because construction was keeping the east entrance closed on weekdays from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. About a third of the park’s 2.7 million visitors in...