Pa'rus - Footprints in Time

Here you can continue on the Pa'rus, or take the short trail to the Human History Museum.

NPS/Abi Farish

Quick Facts

Amenities

5 listed

Accessible Sites, Historical/Interpretive Information/Exhibits, Pets Allowed, Scenic View/Photo Spot, Wheelchair Accessible

Footprints in Time

Learn

The Museum Collections and Archives at Zion National Park include archival documents, artifacts, photos, and ethnographic objects that help us understand how humans survived and adapted in the Zion area. Natural history specimens such as Zion’s herbarium, are also part of the collection's and help us understand the plants and animals which call the canyon landscape home.  

Zion’s herbarium provides snapshots of the park’s vegetation at different points in time. There are over 3,100 plant specimens dried and pressed plants that represent over 95% of the confirmed plant taxa in the park. The preserved plants represent the variety of plant life in Zion National Park and reveal how the park’s first naturalists explored and documented living things. The earliest specimens in the herbarium were collected in the 1920s, additions and updates to this resource continue today. Collecting is prohibited in the park, but herbarium specimens are processed by park staff or researchers with permits. 

The herbarium collection is a useful tool in monitoring human impacts and ecological shifts within this protected area. As time passes, the collection becomes an increasingly valuable resource that will undoubtedly be useful in the future management and protection of Zion’s abundant biological diversity. 

Look

Along the Pa’rus trail you may notice areas roped off and signage to stay on the trail and give plants a chance. Vegetation and living soil along the Pa’rus trail like desert grasses and cacti play an important role in soil stabilization and erosion control.  

Connect

What impact do humans have on the environment today? You can have a positive impact on the environment here at Zion National Park by staying on designated trails, packing out what you pack in, leaving what you find, and respecting wildlife.  

Open Transcript 

Transcript

00;00;08;01 - 00;00;19;35 Unknown Hi there. My name is Ranger Jen, and I'm standing here on the Peru's Trail in Zion National Park. As you walk along this trail enjoying the park. You may not realize that you're walking in the footsteps of many different groups who came before you.

00;00;19;35 - 00;00;30;52 Unknown Humans have lived in and around Zion Canyon for thousands of years, from ancestral Pueblo NS to the Southern Paiute to pioneers. The area we now call Zion has been called home by many before us.

00;00;30;52 - 00;00;47;32 Unknown The Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah is a group that still lives in the area today. When they lived in and around the canyon before Euro-American exploration, they would gather pinon, pine nuts and juniper berries. They would hunt deer and elk and they would live both on the high plateaus and on the canyon floor.

00;00;47;32 - 00;00;54;07 Unknown They also had crops such as corn and squash, and would use diversion dams to get water from the river to help water them.

00;00;54;07 - 00;01;01;40 Unknown The trail we are on today. The PA route is named after the pilot word for the Virgin River Paris, meaning bubbling water.

00;01;01;40 - 00;01;23;47 Unknown Later in the 1860s, pioneering members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints moved to the areas outside the park, such as Rockville and Springdale. Eventually, they moved into the canyon itself. They built homesteads and farmed in the canyon, often getting washed out by seasonal flooding caused by monsoons. Life in the canyon was very difficult and most families had moved out by the turn of the century.

00;01;23;47 - 00;01;42;38 Unknown And now we're here, the National Park Service and the millions of visitors that come to see this canyon every year. And while you may not see striking evidence of these previous inhabitants on your trip to Zion, some of these families and homesteads were located right off this fairy trail and the communities surrounding Zion. These families, descendants are living all around us.

00;01;42;38 - 00;01;56;47 Unknown We all have stories that we carry with us. And in Zion, we're working to protect, study and interpret those stories of the people who care for this place before us. Help us protect these stories by staying on designated trails and never taking anything you see in a national park.

00;01;56;47 - 00;02;05;37 Unknown Thank you for joining me on the beautiful Paris trail today. For that, you're joining us in person or from home? Thank you for taking a moment to learn more about your national parks.

Duration:

2 minutes, 5 seconds

Join Ranger Jenn to learn about the different people that have called Zion home.