Home Care In Mount Carmel, UT

2026 is shaping up to be a big year for Utah’s Zion National Park. The second-most-visited national park in the U.S., Zion has faced a number of hurdles as it attempts to provide a quality experience for its millions of annual visitors.

While park officials have reaffirmed their stance that they will not implement a timed entry system for the park, several other changes are on the way. One is the construction of the Zion Discovery Center near the East Zion entrance of the park. The second is a new vehicle restriction that will dramatically change traffic along the Zion-Mt. Carmel Scenic Highway.

Starting in the summer of 2026, oversized vehicles will be banned from Zion's scenic drive. The move comes after 10 years of studies, which confirm that the historic road simply cannot accommodate the massive RVs and trailers that exist today.

New Vehicle Restrictions For Zion-Mt. Carmel Scenic Highway Start This Summer

Zion National Park has three entrances:

The South entrance and the East entrance are connected primarily by the Zion-Mt. Carmel Scenic Highway. This scenic route follows the canyon and includes a large tunnel. The road was constructed in the early 1900s when vehicles were generally slimmer.

The road, itself an engineering marvel, can't be expanded due to how it is situated in the canyon. It is also protected from major changes as a National Historical route. So, as vehicles have gotten wider and wider, the road has gotten more and more dangerous.

This challenge is particularly noticeable with oversized vehicles and your buses. With so many sharp turns along the road, these large vehicles cannot stay in their lane. Instead, rangers have to stop traffic in both directions and escort the large vehicle through individually. This has caused hours-long delays during peak months when hundreds of oversized vehicles are traveling the route on a given day.

With no room to expand and more visitors coming every year, the park has made the decision to ban the following vehicles from the highway altogether:

The move not only affects RVs, buses, and trailers, but also large trucks, such as dually trucks with four rear tires, as they exceed the new maximum width.

The act of closing the route for these oversized vehicles slows down free-flowing traffic by an average of 19 minutes per vehicle, according to two sets of studies by Zion National Park referenced in the park's announcement.

During the busy season, some hours saw only eight minutes of free-flowing traffic. The other 52 minutes were spent taking one oversized vehicle down the road at a time. One study also revealed there's an average of 41 minutes of blocked traffic per hour along the route.

By removing these vehicles, officials hope to maintain traffic flow along the Zion-Mt. Carmel Scenic Highway and improve the overall visitor experience.

How Visitors Are Reacting To Zion National Park's Road Ban

The announcement by Zion National Park to ban oversized vehicles from the scenic highway has been met with a mix of confusion and relief.

Before the ban, oversized vehicles could buy a permit pass, where they paid to have the 10.7-mile route closed in both directions for their vehicle. However, that permit system is going away with these new regulations. Some visitors expressed sadness that the option was being removed, forcing them to go around the park to reach the east side.

However, most commenters on the park's Instagram announcement have said the change “should have been made years ago.” Even park tour operators are praising the move, while acknowledging that it will make their business more complicated:

“As a tour guide.. this is terrible news for us, and enormous win for park preservation!”

Other commenters sought clarification on the measurements, with one person asking if they could “fold in their mirrors to make the width limit.” (This is a major safety hazard, so please don't plan to fold in mirrors to try to beat the system).

From joy to confusion to annoyance, there is no doubt Zion National Park's newest ban is getting a strong reaction. However, the change will undoubtedly improve traffic flow, limiting the interruptions along an already-busy highway. In a year of big changes, the 2026 vehicle ban may become Zion's biggest park adjustment of the year.

Vehicle size restrictions will be enforced at Zion National Park beginning this June in an effort to promote road safety and protect natural and historic resources, officials say.

Matthew Fink, Zion's public affairs specialist, said the move has been in the works since May 2024 and comes after two safety studies by the U.S. Department of Transportation's Federal Highway Administration. The first was conducted in 1989, and the second was completed in 2019.

Zion Transportation Manager Lisa White said a 2018 study analyzed tour buses entering the park, finding that the majority were too long and heavy to comply with existing regulations. This prompted the 2019 study, which analyzed the road geometry and ran simulations to determine acceptable vehicle lengths.

"That was primarily their focus," she said. "Because the tunnel restrictions — the width and the height — are set in stone. Literally, you cannot exceed those dimensions and fit in the Zion-Mount Carmel Tunnel. But the length restriction was kind of the fudge factor there. And so they ran all these simulations to see a perfect driver in good driving conditions, what they could and could not do given the geometry of the road."

This study helped park officials determine that single vehicles can be no longer than 35 feet, 9 inches, and combined vehicles, such as a pickup truck pulling a trailer, can be no longer than 50 feet. Trailers cannot exceed 26 feet from the hitch to the rear axle. Vehicles must be 11 feet, 4 inches tall or shorter, no wider than 7 feet, 10 inches and weigh 50,000 pounds or less. These restrictions will go into effect on June 7, Park Ranger Jason Benton said in a Facebook post.

"Keep in mind that Zion National Park is not restricting any type of vehicle, such as RVs or vans," he said. "Any vehicle can use the highway, so long as it is not too long, wide, tall or heavy. Be sure to check the size of your vehicle."

The restrictions will be in effect on the 10.7-mile-long Zion-Mount Carmel Highway from the south side's Canyon Junction to the entrance on the east side. The roadway features narrow lanes, sharp turns, steep drop-offs, multiple bridges and the Zion-Mount Carmel Tunnel, Fink said.

The highway was built in 1930, and at the time of its construction, vehicles were not as large as they are now.

"There were no RVs," Fink said. "There were no tour buses of any kind. So, as the years go on in Zion and the vehicles kept getting bigger, in 1984, the park formally recognized the issue of large vehicles on the Zion-Mount Carmel Highway."

In 1989, the park implemented the current one-way traffic system, with two rangers stationed on either side of the tunnel. And when a large vehicle approaches that is too tall or wide to move through the tunnel in a single lane, traffic is halted on the other side of the tunnel as the larger vehicle passes. This requires a permit. This system will no longer be in use once the restrictions go into effect.

In 2016, park officials determined that traffic was stopped for an estimated 41 minutes of each hour to allow large vehicles to traverse the tunnel, according to an informational handout distributed by the park. An average of 98 vehicles, or 1.6% of traffic in Zion, are larger than can safely be driven on the highway.

"First and foremost, what we're doing is we are making the highway more safe to drive," he said, adding that the geometry of the road causes vehicles that are too long to cross the center lines at several points along the highway. Vehicles that are too tall or wide cannot pass through the tunnel in a single lane.

Fink said the move also protects a piece of the country's cultural history. The highway is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and designated a Historic Civil Engineering Landmark.

"It's, you know, been part of this park experience, at this point, for almost 100 years," he said. "So, you know, we want to protect that. Additionally, the road itself is bordered by designated wilderness. So, even if it were an option for us to widen the road, we wouldn't want to do that, or we couldn't do that, because we need to protect our resources, our wildlife, our plant life, et cetera. … We're doing this for safety, as well as preservation of a really iconic road in the park."

Park rangers at the East and South entrances will enforce the policy. No large vehicles will be allowed to pass the East Entrance. They will only be permitted to pass through the South Entrance if they plan to park in the large vehicle lot adjacent to the Zion Canyon Visitor Center, if they have a pass to visit the Zion Lodge, if they plan to drive the Zion Canyon Scenic Drive during the shuttle offseason, or if they will be camping in the Watchman Campground or South Campground.

Fink said it would be ideal if visitors planned ahead and pre-measured their vehicle, but as a last line of defense, rangers can measure vehicles at the East and South entrances.

Those in vehicles exceeding the required measurements can enter the park by alternative means or take an alternative route around the park if traveling to another destination. Alternative routes can add 10-45 minutes to their drive time, depending on the destination.

"But Washington County and Kane County, as well as Arizona, are working on developing additional options by paving Sheep Bridge and Coral Pink Sand Dunes Road, so that those are options for people to shave even more time off of that reroute," White said.

The Zion Forever Project hopes to expand visitor experience with a transit line from the Zion Canyon Visitor Center to the upcoming Zion National Park Discovery Center being built near the park's east side, St. George News reported. This would allow visitors in larger vehicles to use a shuttle system to reach the east side of the park.

However, one of the biggest challenges for a potential transit line is that the shuttle would also need to meet the park's vehicle size restrictions, White said.

SALT LAKE CITY — The National Park Service announced it will begin restricting large vehicles from traveling on the historic Zion—Mt Carmel Highway in Zion National Park on June 7.

According to the NPS, vehicles larger than 35 feet, 9 inches long; 7 feet, 10 inches wide; 11 feet, 4 inches tall or heavier than 50,000 pounds will no longer be permitted to drive along the highway between Canyon Junction and the park’s East Entrance.

Additionally, combined vehicles, such as a truck and trailer, cannot exceed 26 feet from hitch to rear axle and 50 feet overall.

The restrictions come from two safety studies conducted in 1989 and 2019, which were both validated by the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Highway Administration.

The studies found that vehicles longer than the new limits cannot safely stay within their lanes when driving along the Zion—Mt Carmel Highway, while vehicles wider or taller cannot fit through the Zion—Mt Carmel Tunnel while staying within the lane. The four bridges along the Zion—Mt Carmel Highway also cannot safely carry vehicles heavier than 50,000 pounds.

The Zion—Mt Carmel Highway was completed in 1930 and designated as a Historic Civil Engineering Landmark. It is also currently listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Zion National Park Superintendent Jeff Bradybaugh explained the history of the Zion—Mt Carmel Highway, pointing out that it was built in an era of smaller, lighter vehicles.

“Many of today’s large touring vehicles and RVs simply couldn’t have been envisioned when the road was built,” Bradybaugh said. “This decision comes after years of careful study and collaboration with our neighbors, transportation agencies, and the tourism industry.”

The changes are also designed to help ease congestion along the highway. According to the National Parks Service, a 2016 study found that stop-and-go traffic was the norm, with only 19 minutes of free-flowing traffic every hour. During busy days, the free-flowing traffic slowed to only eight minutes every hour.

Other options for large vehicles

Visitors with large vehicles will still have access to the park. While they will not be permitted to enter via the park’s East Entrance, the South Entrance will allow vehicles through if:

Additionally, alternate routes that add between 10 and 45 minutes of driving time are available to provide large vehicles access to Bryce Canyon National Park, the North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park and other destinations in the “Grand Circle” tour.

Visitors are encouraged to review their vehicle dimensions, including after-market accessories like roof racks and tires, and consider alternative routes if size or weight limits are exceeded.

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