Today we drove the section of I-15 that traverses the northeast corner of Arizona, on a road trip to St. George, UT. I write to recommend the few miles which traverse the canyon of the Virgin River as an amazing drive, worth your time to see in daylight.
I wouldn’t describe the arid terrain as “beautiful” but it is certainly is immense, spectacular, and capable of making you feel really small. I’ve seen it many times but still am impressed by both the scenic grandeur and the engineering and construction difficulty involved in carving a four-lane, divided interstate (literally) highway up the deep, narrow, winding canyon cut by the Virgin through the southwest’s signature sandstone.
If you can’t place the Virgin, it is the same river that carved Zion Canyon around which the “overloved” national park was formed. It flows down out of UT, across the corner of AZ, and into NV before ending up in Lake Mead and the Colorado River.
Zion NP is more famous, but the canyon down which I-15 heads on its way south to Las Vegas and beyond is impressive too, even at 70 mph. That a small river flows through this bone dry land is its own kind of miracle. It drains parts of south central Utah that go over 10,000 ft. in elevation and thus get substantial snowpack that spends the summer melting. The river was a lifeline for early settlers of the region.
