Walter’s Wiggles are a series of 21 short switchbacks carved into the face of the cliff, the serpentine switchbacks steeply ascend the north face, each wiggle no more than 20-25 feet in length. The trail was cut from a sheer drop of solid rock in 1926 and remains one of the park’s most spectacular construction wonders. The top offers wonderful views of Zion Canyon. This area was protected as Mukuntuweap National Monument by President William Howard Taft in 1909 and was later renamed Zion National Park. Zion is located on the Colorado Plateau, but borders the Basin and Range Province. In 1919, the year it was created, just 1,814 stalwart souls visited the chiseled sandstone cliffs along a 15-mile-long canyon in remote southern Utah. The park was “virtually inaccessible to visitors, since the existing roads were in poor condition and the closest trailhead a hundred miles away,” according to one historical account.
Now that’s all changed.
The park attracts 4.3 million visitors a year, a number that jumped 60% in the last decade. In 2018, Zion ranked fourth among America’s most visited national parks, ahead of Yellowstone (fifth) and Yosemite (sixth). Only Great Smoky Mountains, the Grand Canyon and Rocky Mountain parks were more popular.
