ALL ABOARD IN ZION UTAH PARK'S SHUTTLE SYSTEM IS ROLLING SMOOTHLY.

Byline: Story by Eric Noland Travel Editor

ZION NATIONAL PARK, Utah - The shaggy-haired rock climber, lugging a tangle of ropes, packs and water bottles, hopped off the bus and began dragging his gear toward the sheer face of a 3,000-foot rock cliff. His girlfriend began jogging up the park road, ``to warm up for the climb,'' she said.

An elderly man on the bus observed, marveled and murmured, ``To think I was too tired to walk into the bar last night.''

The Zion National Park shuttle system, a resounding success story since its implementation four years ago, has come to be embraced by all sorts of visitors to the popular red-rocks preserve in southwestern Utah: hikers, climbers, picnickers, families with toddlers, seniors. On a recent visit, I saw a German couple getting their son and his wheelchair onto the bus with the aid of its hydraulic lift.

The program might have been a source of dread when first proposed, particularly for visitors from Southern California - ``You mean I can't use my car?!'' - but Zion officials have said the feedback since has been predominantly positive. The system is providing a model for other overrun national parks in the West, Yosemite chief among them.

Zion, which logged a record 2.6 million visitors last year, prohibits private vehicles on a 6.2-mile stretch of Zion Canyon Scenic Drive from April through October, when the majority of the park's visitors venture here. One shuttle system runs regularly from the visitor center at the park's entrance to where the road dead-ends at the Temple of Sinawava. A separate shuttle plies the main drag through Springdale, Utah, the community that sits at the southern edge of the park.

The quiet, clean, propane-powered buses are free for visitors (though there is the customary fee to enter the national park) and make nine stops throughout the canyon. They seem to have accomplished one important feat: lowering the stress levels of visitors.

``I was here five years ago (before the shuttle was begun), and it was so busy with cars,'' ranger Tom Haraden said while showing a visitor the secluded facility where the vehicles are serviced and stored. ``If you didn't get a parking place by 9 in the morning to go for a hike, you weren't going for a hike. We only have 400 parking places in the park, and there aren't 100 north of Zion Lodge (at the midpoint of the scenic drive).

``Even for people wanting to drive through, it was a constant traffic jam. People would be waiting for a parking place.''

Haraden and others monitoring the system have noticed that it's radically changed the way people visit the park. Without the pressing mandate of arriving early, people are coming in leisurely at late morning, riding the bus to a trailhead, taking a hike, then riding on to any of Zion's other magnificent freaks of geologic activity.

Traffic wasn't an issue in the park a dozen years ago, but the bump in Zion's visitation has closely followed the boom of hotel development on the Las Vegas Strip. The park is only a 2 1/2-hour drive from Vegas, and most of that is accomplished on Interstate 15.

If you're just passing through Zion on a short stretch of Highway 9 (en route to or from Bryce Canyon National Park, for example), you can stay in your vehicle, but the entrance to the scenic drive will be barred to you. A limited number of cars can also drive as far as Zion Lodge on the park road, if their occupants have reservations.

But for everyone else, vehicles are left in a sprawling parking lot at the south-end visitor center.

``The park is a lot quieter now,'' Haraden said. ``It used to be, you'd bust your butt climbing to the top of Angels Landing, which is a 1,400-foot grunt of a climb. And up there you'd hear the honk-honk, beep-beep of car alarms, or the constant slamming of car doors and trunks.

``The quiet is one of those things we don't notice we don't have until you get a chance to get it back.''

The relative quiet on the buses changes from ride to ride. Although you can sign up for a shuttle ride with a ranger along to provide commentary, drivers on the other buses are equipped with microphones and just can't seem to help themselves - some offer a constant patter anyway. One older driver delivered a nonstop geology lesson, dripping throughout with a curmudgeonly tone. I overheard two European girls remarking that the comparative silence of a previous ride had been much preferable.

If you're lucky, you'll get a driver like Nate, who just drops in the occasional observation - an amusing item of history about the valley, or valuable information on hiking trails. ``Think of Angels Landing as the spine of a dinosaur,'' he said of the canyon's most demanding hike. ``When you're up on there, the trail is 36 inches wide, with a 900-foot drop on one side, a 1,500-foot drop on the other. There's a chain along the trail for the hikers to use. It's the shiniest chain in the world.''

Zion's rock walls are certainly spectacular, rising 2,000 and 3,000 feet straight up from the narrow floor drained by the Virgin River. At many of the national parks in the region, you stand on the rim of a deep, multihued gash in the earth and look down - Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon. Zion is special because the rock formations soar above the tourist areas.

Mormon settlers in the 19th century and a Methodist minister in the early 1900s felt humbled by the eminences, and turned to their spiritual books to name them. On a ride through the canyon, you can marvel at the Court of the Patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob), the Great White Throne, the Organ, the Virgin Mary (a remarkable image of a hooded figure on white sandstone) and the Altar of Sacrifice (a flat-topped cliff with red streaks of oxidation trailing down its side).

The perspective from the top is just as dazzling. Nate's commentary on Angels Landing weakened my resolve to tackle that one, so I embarked instead on the eight-mile round trip to aptly named Observation Point. It, too, is rated strenuous, with a 2,100-foot elevation gain, but without the precarious high-wire act.

Still, at one point the trail clings to a precipitous, white-sandstone face. The trail is plenty wide here, but it's nonetheless unsettling to walk alongside a wall that rises straight up from your right shoulder, knowing that the edge of the trail to your left plunges to a 1,000-foot drop. Heed the park literature when it notes that this hike is not for acrophobes.

If you get a little hot on the hike, relief awaits at the bottom. Next to the Observation Point trailhead is Weeping Rock, a geologic oddity where rain at the top of the plateau seeps through sandstone, hits the harder shale and slides sideways until it can find an opening here on the cliff face. The water dribbles out just above an overhang and falls as mist. Breezes often waft through here, too.

Weeping Rock is thus the coolest place in Zion in the summer, and is a popular stop for even the most sedentary shuttle riders.

By contrast, another part of Zion that is overlooked by many visitors is Kolob Canyons. It is in the extreme northwest corner of the park, many miles from the Zion Canyon floor and its shuttle buses. Follow the signs off Interstate 15 for a short drive into the mountains.

Around a couple of bends, the featureless mountains of southern Utah suddenly give way to some dramatic red-rock edifices, including Paria Point, which resembles the tip of a sharpened pencil. For a scenic leg- stretcher, wander out Timber Creek Overlook Trail (only a half mile each way) to a promontory that affords a superb view to the south.

A number of factors have contributed to the success of the Zion shuttle system - factors not shared by Yosemite or Yellowstone.

Zion has a substantial town sitting right on its southern border, which addresses the issue of parking spaces and the ease of getting visitors from their lodgings to the park entrance. And the most scenic part of the park lies along a dead-end road that is only six miles in length.

Yosemite Valley, on the other hand, lies a good distance from the foothill communities to the west, and the mountain roads can sorely test buses. ``Everybody looks at Zion, and it's a wonderful success story,'' said Yosemite ranger Scott Gediman, ``but every park is different, and there are logistical issues to consider.''

Yosemite plans eventually to reduce day-use parking passes in the valley to 550 and have most people park in remote lots and come in on buses. Implementation of the system is at least seven years down the road, though.

``What we're trying to take from (the Zion example) is that it is fun, convenient and enhances the visitor experience'' to ride the shuttles, Gediman said.

Yellowstone, meanwhile, has a vast, figure-eight-shaped area served by its road network, and all of it is popular with visitors. The gateways are from all points of the compass.

Logistics may preclude Yosemite and Yellowstone from exactly copying the Zion system, but it sure is working here.

``The first day we had the shuttle system (in 2000), a bus driver saw a mountain lion,'' Haraden said. ``We never see mountain lions in the canyon. It was probably sheer chance, but what a nice sign.''

I was treated to two such encouraging signs. Most of Zion's animals are nocturnal, so on a shuttle ride through the canyon one evening we were advised by the driver to watch closely for wildlife. Before long, the headlights settled on two trotting forms alongside the road. Gray foxes.

Four years ago, they might have been candidates for road kill. If they dared to come around at all.

Eric Noland, [phone]

eric.noland(at)dailynews.com

IF YOU GO

GETTING THERE: Zion National Park is in the southwest corner of Utah, about a two-hour, 45-minute drive (unhurried) from Las Vegas via Interstate 15 and Highway 9.

LODGING: Plan far in advance to get into the Zion Lodge, the only accommodations in the park - and in a prime location, about halfway up the canyon's scenic drive. It is very popular with international tourists and fills up quickly. During the current high season, motel rooms are priced at $120.40 per night, cabins at $128.40. In early December, and again from January to March, winter rates will be in effect, with rooms priced from $73.40 to $93.40. Information and reservations: [phone] or [phone]; www.zionlodge.com, www.xanterra.com/properties/zion.htm.

If the Zion Lodge is booked up during your dates, a pleasant alternative is the Harvest House Bed & Breakfast in Springdale. Its greatest strength is that it is on a side street (Canyon View Drive), set slightly back from Springdale's main drag, Highway 9. It also has a hot tub out back, which can be heavenly if you've thrashed your muscles and joints on hiking trails all day. The view of Zion's cliffs from the tub is pretty spectacular, too. Room rates range from $90 to $110. Information and reservations: [phone]; www.harvesthouse.net.

DINING: The dining options are simple and casual in Springdale. For something a little more elegant, the Zion Lodge Dining Room is about the only option. Be sure to ask if they have any Utah trout. Reservations should be made at least two weeks in advance: [phone].

In Springdale, the Mexican fare is excellent at the Bit and Spur Saloon. (For sport, eavesdrop on a neighboring table as a Utah waitress tries to describe a tamale to a German tourist.) For lunch on a patio, try Oscar's Cafe or Flanigan's Inn.

INFORMATION: Zion National Park information: [phone]; www.nps.gov/zion.

CAPTION(S):

7 photos, box

Photo:

(1 -- 3 -- color) Shuttle buses pass one another deep in Zion Canyon, top. Private vehicles are prohibited in the canyon in high season, which enhances the visitor experience - there's no fighting for a parking spot at such popular sites as the Narrows, above, or Weeping Rock, above right.

(4 -- 7) Outdoor enthusiasts fill the buses at the south end of Zion National Park, left, no doubt anticipating the spectacular views of the edifices along the Observation Point Trail, above, far left and below.

Box:

IF YOU GO (see text)