Grand Staircase is more than 12 times the size of Zion, yet it gets a fraction of the park’s visitors, recording just 959,234 in 2020. But that’s not for want of natural and historical wonders.

This week we launched our series on the controversial southern Utah monuments, plus how cyanobacteria still plague Zion National Park's Virgin River.

Zion leaped past Yellowstone National Park in total visitation for second place — and first in the West — just by outdrawing America's first park by over 180,000 people in December.