Skip to main content

2016 Fall Mountain Trip Part 10; Utah State Route 8, Snow Canyon State Park, and Utah State Route 34

Picking up from the previous blog I pulled off of UT 18 on to Utah State Route 8 on Sunset Boulevard in western St. George to head towards Snow Canyon State Park.


This blog is Part 10 in the 2016 Fall Mountain Trip Series, Part 9 can be found here:

2016 Fall Mountain Trip Part 9; Interstate 15 through the Virgin River Gorge

UT 8 is a small 1.3 mile State Highway running from UT 18 on Sunset Boulevard west to Dixie Downs Road.  UT 8 is part of the former routing of US 91 which continued west as what is now signed as "Old Highway 91" to the Arizona State Line.  In 1973 US 91 was deleted south of Brigham City, UT which removed Sunset Boulevard from the State Highway System.

USends.com on US 91

This 1950 Utah State Highway Maps shows how US 91 entered Utah from Arizona and reached St. George which would include the alignment of UT 8.

1950 State Highway Map

In 1972 UT 300 was commissioned south from UT 18 above the rim of Snow Canyon to the southern State Park Boundary.  UT 300 was likely never signed within Snow Canyon as it is common UDOT practice to maintain small roadways unsigned in State Parks.  In 1991 the Utah Transportation Commission authorized UT 8 to be designated over all of existing UT 300 pending improvements south of Snow Canyon State Park.  Roadways included into UT 8 were routed from UT 18 over Sunset Boulevard, through Santa Clara to 200 East, and Center Street in Ivins to UT 300 at Snow Canyon Drive.  Once the new UT 8 was completed in 1996 it absorbed all of UT 300 north to looping back to UT 18.  Oddly UT 8 was truncated to Dixie Downs Road in 1999 which apparently was requested by the Utah Division of Parks and Recreation.

As stated above I started my approach to Snow Canyon State Park via UT 8 on Sunset Boulevard headed west from UT 18.



I took UT 8 to it's terminus at Dixie Downs Road and headed north to Snow Canyon Parkway.  Really the original alignment of UT 8 through Ivins wasn't exactly the most logical in retrospect.  Soon I found myself at the gate of Snow Canyon State Park on Snow Canyon Drive.






Snow Canyon has been a State Park since 1958 and is sandstone canyon similar to Zion Canyon.  Snow Canyon gets it's name from local settlers Lorenzo and Erastus Snow.  Snow Canyon ranges in elevation from about 3,100 feet at the bottom to a peak elevation of 5,023 feet above sea level on the rim.  Snow Canyon State Park has various hiking trails and even has pink sand dunes which are easily accessed from the rapidly ascending Snow Canyon Drive.




After trying a few trails I made my way north through Snow Canyon Park on Snow Canyon Drive to UT 18.







From UT 18 there is a small dirt access road to Panorama Point which overlooks Snow Canyon from the northern rim.



From Snow Canyon I took UT 18 south to UT 34 in St. George.  UT 34 is a small 2.15 mile State Highway running entirely on East St. George Boulevard from UT 18 east to I-15.  Much like UT 8 all of UT 34 was part of US 91 before it was truncated in 1973.



After completing UT 34 I jumped on I-15 briefly to UT 9 to head east towards Zion National Park.


Part 11 of this blog series can be found here:

2016 Fall Mountain Trip Part 11; Zion National Park and Utah State Route 9/The Mount Carmel Highway

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Ghost Town Tuesday; Mannfield, FL and the stairway to Hell

Back in 2015 I went searching the Lecanto Sand Hills for the original Citrus County Seat known as Mannfield.  Unlike Centrailia in Hernando County and Fivay in Pasco County I did find something worth seeing. Mannfield is located in the Lecanto Sand Hill section of Withlacoochee State Forest somewhat east of the intersection of Citrus County Route 491 and Mansfield Road. Mannfield was named after Austin Mann and founded in Hernando County in 1884 before Citrus County Split away.  In 1887 Citrus County was split from northern Hernando County while Pasco County was spun off to the south.  Mannfield was selected as the new Citrus County seat due to it being near the county geographic center.  Reportedly Mannfield had as many as 250 people when it was the County Seat.  The town included various businesses one might include at the time, even a sawmill which was common for the area.  In 1891 Citrus County voted to move it's seat to Inverness which set the s...

Interstate 40's Tumultuous Ride Through the Pigeon River Gorge

In the nearly 60 years Interstate 40 has been open to traffic through the Pigeon River Gorge in the mountains of Western North Carolina, it has been troubled by frequent rockslides and damaging flooding, which has seen the over 30-mile stretch through North Carolina and Tennessee closed for months at a time. Most recently, excessive rainfall from Hurricane Helene in September 2024 saw sections of Interstate 40 wash away into a raging Pigeon River. While the physical troubles of Interstate 40 are well known, how I-40 came to be through the area is a tale of its own. Interstate 40 West through Haywood County near mile marker 10. I-40's route through the Pigeon River Gorge dates to local political squabbles in the 1940s and a state highway law written in 1921. A small note appeared in the July 28, 1945, Asheville Times. It read that the North Carolina State Highway Commission had authorized a feasibility study of a "...water-level road down [the] Pigeon River to the Tennessee l...

The mystery of Hawaii Route 144 and temporary Hawaii Route 11

The 1959 Gousha Road map of Hawaii features two largely unknown references in the form of Hawaii Route 144 and Temporary Hawaii Route 11.  Both corridors are shown running from the boundary of Hawaii Volcanoes National Park east to Glenwood via Volcano Village.  At the time Hawaii Route 11 was using the so-called "Volcano Road" which was constructed as a modernization of Mamalahoa Highway during 1927-1928.  This blog will examine the two map references and will attempt to determine what they might indicate.  The mystery of Hawaii Route 144 and Temporary Hawaii Route 11 Hawaii Route 11 is part of Mamalahoa Highway (the Hawaii Belt Road) and is the longest Hawaiian State Route at 121.97 miles.  The highway begins at the mutual junction of Hawaii Route 19 and Hawaii Route 190 in Kailua-Kona.  From Kailua-Kona the routing of Hawaii Route 11 crosses the volcanic landscapes of southern side of the Big Island.  Hawaii Route 11 terminates at Hawaii Route 19/Ka...