Zion N.P. - The Kolob Terraces Road

Saturday, November 09, 2019
Virgin, Utah, United States
I don’t think I’ve ever driven the entire length of I-15 through Utah before.  On the map it seems to skirt the west side of the mountains through the Great Basin Desert all the way but is in reality a more scenic and interesting drive, passing over several passes over 6,000 feet, through grassy rangeland and open forest as well as desert stretches. I was somewhat surprised by the amount of traffic on the road, especially truck traffic, but I guess it’s the preferred route between Southern California and the Midwest for trucks via I-80 as well as the main route between the now large cities of Salt Lake and Las Vegas. In any event it’s not as relaxing a drive as the interstates farther north.
With some time on my hands I decided to make stops at a few minor sights along the way. The Utah Territorial Statehouse Museum is located in a small town along the highway named Fillmore. It was the territory’s first capital, at the time situated rather centrally in the territory that included most of what is Nevada as well as Utah. Scarcity of water prevented the area from developing, so the capital was soon moved north to the population center at Salt Lake City.  The museum covers a lot of early history of settlement in Utah.
A short distance farther south near the intersection of I-70 with I-15 I stopped at another historic site named Cove Fort, a small fort built on the orders of Brigham Young in the early years of settlement to provide protection for settlers against Indian raids, skirmishes that never happened because the Mormons maintained quite good relations with most tribes. Instead it functioned mostly as an inn for wayward travelers in the remote country. Interestingly, the historic site is run by the LDS Church rather than the state, and the tour guides are church volunteers.
I made it to Cedar City by dark and realized it was much too cold there to car camp for the night, so I found a motel room.  There are great differences in altitude in southern Utah, and I forgot that Cedar City was at around 6,000 feet, in contrast to the Saint George, the next city to the south which is closer to 3,000.   
It is a goal of mine to do some more extensive hiking in Zion National Park, and I hoped to get one or more in on this trip. As I left Cedar City, though, I realized my right turn signal light was out so decided to stop and get it replaced right away.  Well, although the Napa auto parts store was just a few miles away from the repair shop, it took nearly two hours for the light to get delivered. I quickly decided on an alternative plan for the park which was to drive the Kolob Terraces Road.
The best known and most heavily visited part of Zion National Park is very crowded Zion Canyon, but there are two lesser known sectors. One of those is Kolob Canyons in the northwest part of the park off I-15 where I did a beautiful hike to a remote arch the last time I was here in 2011.  A second is the Kolob Terraces Road which runs in a generally southwest to northeast direction in and out of the park to the west and northwest of Zion Canyon.  The road climbs impressively over more than 30 miles from under 4,000 feet at the entrance to around 8,000 feet in the forested area around Kolob Reservoir, just outside the park boundaries. The scenery is a spectacular mix of canyons, red rock formations, grasslands, forests, cliffs, and peaks that’s almost unique to southern Utah. Numerous hiking trails head out from the road but I only did short ones to overlooks like Lava Point where the view from the overlook extends all the way to Bryce Canyon as well as all of Zion.  Looking down at the canyons of Zion from high above is a completely different perspective than upwards from the bottoms.  I’ll definitely be back some day from a true hiking trip on Zion’s many spectacular trails.
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