Zion National Park is tackling its most ambitious infrastructure makeover in decades, pairing a studs-to-soil rehabilitation of its 1920s South Campground with a major redesign of the south entrance, which sees the highest share of visitor traffic. The campground construction, which began in April 2024, is already under way, while the entrance overhaul is slated to break ground in late winter 2025. Phase 1 is scheduled for completion by late spring 2026, with later phases to follow as funding becomes available. Both projects lean on a funding cocktail that includes the Great American Outdoors Act’s Legacy Restoration Fund, disaster-recovery appropriations and visitor entrance fees, giving private park owners a real-time case study in how public dollars are chipping away at deferred maintenance. The Great American Outdoors Act’s Legacy Restoration Fund sets aside up to $1.3 billion per year, for five years (fiscal 2021-2025), specifically for National Park Service deferred-maintenance and repair projects, and Zion’s approach shows how that money can translate into visitor-ready amenities.
Zion recorded just over 5 million visits in 2021—the highest annual total in the park’s history. About 70% of those visitors entered through the south entrance. Visitation in 2023 was about 4.6 million. Park officials say the dual projects aim to address crowding and aging facilities while offering a blueprint for commercial campgrounds wrestling with similar crowd-control and infrastructure challenges. The South Campground upgrade alone demonstrates how a single construction window can set up decades of operational savings, from modern utility lines to climate-resilient drainage.
South Campground was established in the 1920s and still relies on utility runs installed in the 1960s. “We are just beginning the construction process,” Superintendent Jeff Bradybaugh said in an April 5 news release announcing the start of the campground overhaul.
Work crews are building new restrooms, rehabilitating existing ones, installing modern drinking-water and sewer systems, fortifying storm-water channels, regrading campsites, adding wildlife-resistant food lockers, planting natives and erecting a dedicated wilderness-permit building. The improvements are financed by GAOA, disaster funds and entrance fees, Bradybaugh said in the same release, adding, “Visitors to Zion will benefit for years from the hard work of the many expert park employees and skilled craftspeople who are rehabilitating one of our most popular and historic campgrounds. Congress made this work possible through the Great American Outdoors Act – Legacy Restoration Fund.”
For private campground and RV-park operators planning their own makeovers, Zion’s dig-once approach illustrates how bundling underground work for future fiber, EV circuits and low-voltage lighting can prevent repeat ground disturbance and reduce lifetime capital costs. Specifying modular water and wastewater systems that can scale in 25- to 50-percent increments enables operators to respond to rising demand without replacing entire plants. Designing redundant pumps and elevated storage ensures water resilience, while installing wildlife-proof food lockers during tent-pad rebuilds eliminates retrofit labor and supports wildlife-management messaging.
Separately, the National Park Service signed a Finding of No Significant Impact in July 2024 for a sweeping traffic-flow redesign that will realign the Zion-Mt. Carmel Highway, add two roundabouts, replace a two-lane bridge with a four-lane span over the Virgin River and build a pedestrian underpass linking to the Pa’rus Trail, according to FONSI clearance. About 70% of the park’s visitors enter at this gate, and Phase 1 construction is expected to run from late winter 2025 to late spring 2026, with later phases queued as money becomes available.
“Hikers, bikers, drivers, and shuttle riders are all going to benefit from these improvements,” Bradybaugh said in a recent release.
“Zion is thankful to the transportation professionals who developed the plan and to members of the public and other stakeholders who shared feedback during our public comment period earlier this year,” he added.
Operators of smaller properties can adapt Zion’s arrival-flow playbook by separating travel modes with dedicated lanes or timed windows, installing compact roundabouts to keep vehicles moving, using a pre-arrival digital funnel such as license-plate capture and mobile keys to cut curbside dwell time, considering a prefab pedestrian bridge or path to divert foot traffic, and staging overflow parking off-site with shuttle or e-bike links.
Meanwhile, Zion raised front-country camping fees for the first time since 2015. Nightly rates climbed to $45 for electric sites at Watchman Campground, $35 for non-electric sites at Watchman and South, and $25 at Lava Point, with a new $5 dump-station fee for non-campers, according to the fee notice.
The park also shifted all wilderness-permit lotteries and reservations to Recreation.gov. The new per-person structure charges a $6 application fee, $10 for selected day-use permits, and $20 plus $7 per person per night for overnights, giving staff direct email and text contact with backcountry visitors.
Taken together, Zion’s utility overhaul, traffic redesign, fee recalibration and regional capacity push create a real-time test bed for campground owners and outdoor-hospitality managers looking to update their own properties. Tracking each phase as it rolls out could help private operators time investments, minimize disruptions and stretch every construction dollar.