Traveling in national parks was dangerous for visitors in 2023
Who wants to go hiking? I do. Visiting national parks around the West is one of my passions.
Even though I didn’t get to see many of them in 2023, there has been plenty of news (both good and bad) about parks near Southern Nevada this year.
As a digital news editor for the Review-Journal, I tackled a few memorable items about the parks. Here are my favorites:
Death Valley flooding
Last August’s natural disaster was the latest chapter in a series of floods that have damaged roads and buildings at Death Valley National Park in California.
Storms delay reopening of North Rim
It was a pretty rough winter at the North Rim inside Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona. It was so rough that the North Rim entrance didn’t reopen until June because of consistent heavy snowfall.
Zion sees 2nd-busiest year in park’s history
If you have visited Zion National Park in Utah in recent years and thought it was really crowded, you’re right. The park in southwestern Utah recorded 4,692,417 visits in 2022, its second busiest on record, the park reported in April 2023.
Grand Canyon hiker dies on trail
I’ve hiked inside the Grand Canyon several times, including traversing rim-to-rim in less than 24 hours. Unfortunately, it doesn’t surprise me when hikers die on the trails, which happens every year. In May, an Indiana woman died on the Bright Angel Trail.
Death at Zion
Staying with this grim subject, there were no reported hiker deaths at Zion National Park in 2023, unlike 2022. But there have been several in recent years, and I compiled a story about them. Zion hikers may want to read it before heading out.
