Water used to dislodge boulders at Zion National Park


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SPRINGDALE, Washington County — Officials at one of Utah’s most popular tourist destinations are using an old resource to provide a new solution to an ongoing hazard.

Following two major rocks slides Friday that closed access to two trails and a main access road, managers at Zion National Park devised an innovative way to dislodge two very large rocks that were deemed unstable and posed a potential danger to visitors.

“We had to come up with an idea to bring those two large rocks down,” explained John Marciano, public information officer at Zion National Park. “Our incident command team came up with the idea to use a water monitor, which is essentially a stand-alone nozzle that goes on the end of a fire hose to aim precisely at the base of the rock in the hopes that we could bring it down.”

After the Friday night rock slide that brought down approximately 200 tons of debris, blocking both lanes on Zion's Scenic Drive, two large rocks remained unstable and were identified as “overhead hazards” to continued operations, Marciano said. Using the fire monitor provided enough pressure and washout for the dangerous rocks to topple into the debris pile below, he added.

“So now we can go in and remove the debris and get the road open,” Marciano said.

The water method was deemed a safer and environmentally friendly option compared with a "blasting operation," he said, and it was also much less costly.

More analysis will be conducted to determine how stable the slope is after further saturation, but officials are fairly confident they will be able to get the road cleared and open by week’s end, weather permitting, Marciano said.

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The rock slide closed about 2 miles of a scenic drive inside the park. No one was injured, but Zion Scenic Drive was left impassable just north of Zion Lodge and has remained closed since then.

Park officials say the slide occurred late Friday, covering both lanes of the road with about 200 tons of massive boulders and debris that stretch about four car lengths.

Other landslides have closed two trails in the park as well. Officials attribute recent snow and rain as the cause of the rock and debris slides. Email: jlee@deseretnews.com Twitter: JasenLee1

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