4.4 million visited Grand Canyon last year

The Grand Canyon was the fourth-most visited national park last year, according to new data released last week.

By the numbers: The canyon is one of the state's biggest tourism drivers and last year drew 4.4 million visitors.

• Only Great Smoky Mountains, Zion and Yellowstone national parks saw larger crowds.

Worth your time: Arizona author Kevin Fedarko last week published an account of how the North Rim of the Grand Canyon has been forever changed by last year's Dragon Bravo Fire, which burned nearly 150,000 acres and destroyed the historic Grand Canyon Lodge.

• "But in addition to being a catastrophe, what unfolded here is also an antecedent to a renaissance. A story not only of what has been lost, but of what eventually will find a way to flourish and endure," he writes for The New York Times Magazine.