Zion National Park Trivia
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33 free Zion National Park trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Sep 2026.
This Zion National Park trivia quiz covers the red-rock canyon country of southwestern Utah where the Colorado Plateau, Great Basin and Mojave Desert meet. It ranges across Zion Canyon and the Virgin River that carved it, Angels Landing and its chains, the Narrows, the Great White Throne, Kolob Arch, the Zion-Mount Carmel tunnel with its cliff-side windows, and the bighorn, condors and 19 kinds of bat that live there. There is plenty of history too: the Ancestral Puebloans and Southern Paiute, the Dominguez-Escalante padres of 1776, Mormon settler Isaac Behunin who named the canyon, Powell's 'Mukuntuweap', Taft's 1909 monument and the 1919 name change to Zion, the Union Pacific's rail-and-bus tours, Gilbert Stanley Underwood's lodge, the 1995 landslide that trapped 450 people and the shuttle buses that took over the canyon in 2000. Questions run from easy to expert with the difficulty shown on each one, so it works for a shuttle-queue game or a serious park-nerd challenge. Every answer was checked against a reference page and each question carries its citation. If you enjoy it, try our Bryce Canyon, Arches and US National Parks quizzes next.
30 of 33 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Zion National Park is in which U.S. state?
Utah
Utah. Zion sits in the state's southwest, and the Mormon pioneers who farmed its canyon floor in the 1860s gave it the biblical name Zion.
Q 02Which small town sits right outside Zion National Park's south entrance?
Springdale
Springdale. Mormon settlers founded it as a farming community in the 1860s, but today tourism from the park is what sustains it.
Q 03The North Fork of which watercourse carved Zion Canyon?
Virgin River
Virgin River. As the land was pushed upward, the river's North Fork tumbled down a steep gradient and cut through the rock layers, carving the canyon.
Q 04Zion Canyon's reddish and tan walls are made of which rock formation?
Navajo Sandstone
Navajo Sandstone. It formed from Jurassic sand dunes; iron oxides stain its lower cliffs red, while its upper cliffs are bleached pale, nearly white.
Q 05Which president first protected Zion Canyon, as Mukuntuweap National Monument?
William Howard Taft
William Howard Taft. In 1909 he acted after Frederick Dellenbaugh's paintings of the canyon and his Scribner's Magazine article stirred calls for its protection.
Q 06Which explorer visited Zion Canyon in 1872 and named it Mukuntuweap, believing it to be the Paiute name?
John Wesley Powell
John Wesley Powell. He came while leading his second Colorado River expedition, and his party travelled down neighbouring Parunuweap Canyon.
Q 07Why was Mukuntuweap National Monument renamed 'Zion' in 1918?
Locals disliked the old name
Locals disliked the old name, and the Mormon community already called the canyon Zion, so officials adopted that name instead.
Q 08Each year from March 1, Zion closes some climbing routes to protect which nesting bird?
Peregrine falcon
Peregrine falcon. Pesticides such as DDT made it endangered, but after they were restricted it recovered and was taken off the US endangered list in 1999.
Q 09Which two Franciscan friars passed near Zion's Kolob Canyons in 1776?
Dominguez and Escalante
Dominguez and Escalante were looking for an overland route from Santa Fe to Monterey, California, but gave up and turned back to New Mexico.
Q 10Which famous Zion hike ends on a knife-edge ridge where hikers hold chains above sheer drop-offs?
Angels Landing
Angels Landing. After years of crowding, the park began requiring permits beyond Scout Lookout in 2022.
Q 11Which owl, listed as federally threatened in 1993, nests in Zion's deep side canyons?
Mexican spotted owl
Mexican spotted owl. Zion's deep slot canyons let in little sunlight and stay cool, and the owl pairs nest in cavities in their cliffs.
Q 12Which famous Zion hike means wading upstream into a deep gorge from the end of the scenic drive?
The Narrows
The Narrows. Because the route follows the river itself, spring snowmelt that swells the river can close it to hikers.
Q 13Which famous slot canyon lies off Zion National Park's Kolob Terrace Road?
The Subway
The Subway. Going top-down takes advanced canyoneering skills, so the easier way in is hiking upstream from below.
Q 21Which video game's 'Honest Hearts' expansion is set in Zion National Park?
Fallout: New Vegas
Fallout: New Vegas. Its 2011 'Honest Hearts' expansion sends players into a post-apocalyptic Zion, where peaceful tribes are fighting off invading White Legs raiders.
Q 22Which large mammal, once gone from the area, was reintroduced to Zion National Park?
Desert bighorn sheep
Desert bighorn sheep. Hunting, habitat loss and diseases from domestic livestock had wiped them out in the area before they were brought back.
Q 23In 2014 Zion National Park confirmed the first successful breeding within its borders of which giant bird?
California condor
Q 14What is the most famous feature of the Zion-Mount Carmel Highway, opened in 1930?
A 1.1-mile tunnel
A 1.1-mile tunnel. Bicycles are barred from it, so cyclists must catch a ride with a vehicle to get through.
Q 15Which famous formation stands beside the highway near Zion National Park's east entrance?
Checkerboard Mesa
Checkerboard Mesa. Horizontal lines of ancient dune cross-bedding meet vertical cracks, giving the rock its grid.
Q 16Which spot marks the end of the Zion Canyon Scenic Drive?
Temple of Sinawava
Temple of Sinawava. From here the canyon widens, as soft shale beneath the cliffs wears away and the undercut walls collapse.
Q 17Since 2000, how do most visitors travel up Zion Canyon from spring to fall?
On free shuttle buses
On free shuttle buses. The park began running them in 2000 and bars private cars from the scenic drive during shuttle season, to ease traffic and parking problems.
Q 18Which architect designed the rustic Zion Lodge for a railroad's tourism company?
Gilbert Stanley Underwood
Gilbert Stanley Underwood. After a 1966 fire a prefabricated replacement went up quickly but lacked his rustic style, until later remodels made it more rustic again.
Q 19In April 1995, what stranded about 450 people at Zion Lodge?
A landslide
A landslide. Earlier slides had dammed the river into lakes that left the canyon floor flat, and in 1995 the blocked river washed out the only road.
Q 20Which Western filmed in Zion National Park and at nearby Grafton ghost town?
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Robert Redford later named the ski resort he had bought near Provo 'Sundance', after his role in it.
California condor. After the last wild condors were captured in the 1980s, captive-bred birds were released in Arizona, and a pair from there nested in Zion and hatched a chick.
Q 24Which ancient culture lived in the Zion area before the Southern Paiute moved in?
Ancestral Puebloans
Ancestral Puebloans. Rather than vanishing, they migrated away and merged into later peoples, and today's Hopi and Zuni are among their descendants.
Q 25Which large predator roams Zion, preying mainly on mule deer?
Mountain lion
Mountain lion. With fewer cougars in Zion Canyon, over-abundant deer browsing is one reason few young cottonwoods now take hold.
Q 26Entrepreneur David Flanigan built cableworks to lower what from Cable Mountain into Zion Canyon?
Lumber
Lumber. Settlers needed it for building, and before the cable, getting it could mean a trip of a week or more.
Q 27Which September 2015 disaster killed a party of seven in Zion's Keyhole Canyon?
A flash flood
A flash flood. Moisture partly from Hurricane Linda fed the storms, which also killed at least 12 people in nearby Hildale.
Q 28Which three geographic provinces meet at Zion?
Colorado Plateau, Great Basin and Mojave Desert
Colorado Plateau, Great Basin and Mojave Desert. Zion sits at their junction, which helps explain its unusually varied plants and animals.
Q 29Zion's cliffs form the middle of which famous sequence of rock layers between northern Arizona and Bryce Canyon?
The Grand Staircase
The Grand Staircase. Uplift raised the region's rock layers, and erosion shaped their edges into a series of giant cliff steps.
Q 30Which railroad set up the company that developed early tourism at Zion?
Union Pacific
Union Pacific. The company it formed in 1923 built rustic lodges such as Zion Lodge to give its rail travellers a destination.