Nearly 10 pounds of human poop found along iconic hiking path at Utah national park
Tourists are leaving their poop to rot along an iconic hiking trail at Utah’s most popular park, a ranger said.
A park ranger at Zion National Park collected 14 pounds of trash from a popular hiking trail. At least 9 pounds of the trash was human waste, the park said.
“The graffiti was the worst I’ve ever seen,” a ranger said, according to a park Facebook post on Tuesday. “It seemed like the entire stretch I walked had something left on the rock: a handprint, a name, and I won’t go into detail about the poop.”
The Narrows is a beloved tail that winds through the narrowest part of Zion Canyon and through the Virgin River. The path is one of the most popular at the national park, according to the National Park Service.
Earlier this year, toxins were found in the water, and rangers stopped patrolling the area. When the toxin risk was lowered, rangers found a devastating scene of graffiti and human poop trashing the area, the park said.
Many hikers left poop along the trail because there are no restrooms beyond the trail head, according to the park. Tourists are required to carry solid human waste from the canyons and throw it away.
“All in all, I picked up 14 pounds of trash (9 pounds were human waste) and cleaned probably 1,000 handprints or etchings in less than a mile,” the ranger said. “While it hurts to see such a unique and beautiful place treated like this, I feel honored that I have the responsibility to protect it.”
The Narrows isn’t the only part of the park being vandalized, McClatchy News reported. It’s been an ongoing problem for Zion National Park officials this year. The park was already one of the most visited national parks in the U.S., and more people have been visiting during the coronavirus pandemic.
Nearly 450,000 people visited the park in July, and almost 4.5 million people visited in 2019, according to park data.
As more tourists flocked to the park, blue spray paint and muddy handprints have splattered sandstone walls; names were carved into logs and alcoves; and canyon walls were scraped up, park officials said.
In August, officials found six bright blue boxes painted on sandstone, McClatchy News previously reported.
Graffiti and vandalism in the park takes time and money to clean up. The surface could be damaged and often can’t be restored to its original condition, park officials said.
Many of the rocks at Zion National Park are sedimentary rocks whose layers were first deposited between 110 million and 270 million years ago, park officials said.
“Depending on the area damaged and what the surface is, it can take park staff hours to remove using a variety of equipment that has to be carried to the site,” the park said in a Dec. 15 Facebook post. “Graffiti and other forms of damage to park resources are harmful and illegal.”
This story was originally published December 29, 2020 at 1:49 PM with the headline "Nearly 10 pounds of human poop found along iconic hiking path at Utah national park."