This Highway Shouldn't Exist...But It Does

Added: 2026-05-30

[00:00:00]In the far northwestern corner of Arizona, this interstate cuts through one of the most extreme landscapes in the Southwest. But what makes this drive so fascinating isn't just the scenery.

[00:00:11]It's the fact that engineers somehow managed to build a major highway right through solid rock.

[00:00:20]From the moment I jumped on the interstate and saw the mountains in the distance, I thought this would be just another ordinary drive through a boring mountain pass. It wasn't. As soon as I saw this sign, I knew I was headed straight for one heck of a roller coaster ride.

[00:00:36]Now, I'm sure my insurance agent isn't going to appreciate hearing me say this, but it was incredibly difficult to take my eyes off the mountains. There's something very awe inspiring about seeing the rocky, jagged peaks meet up with the white and blue sky. And the funny thing about this mountain range is that the ridge line leads your eyes directly toward the mouth of the gorge.

[00:00:56]So, the closer you get, the bigger the surroundings become.

[00:01:00]I'll be telling you all sorts of fun facts about the gorge and the history of the highway throughout the video. But above everything else, I really wanted to capture that profound sense of astonishment that consumes you the moment you enter the gorge. That feeling in your gut that makes you ask yourself, how is this real? And more importantly, how does one even begin to carve out a highway through here? And where do you begin? Even for me, it was tough to contain my enthusiasm, but then again, I did have multiple cameras capturing a variety of different angles.

[00:01:33]Now, this was just the beginning of the drive through the famous Virgin River Gorge in northwestern Arizona, a drive that I have only done but a handful of times. But when I do come through here, it never fails to deliver that shock factor. And it honestly feels like less of a highway and more like slipping into another world.

[00:01:52]Just the sheer amount of natural beauty squeezed into this region over the course of about a dozen miles is mindblowing. And I feel very lucky that I was able to shoot this video on such a beautiful day. Now, had the sky been gloomy, I don't think it would have had that wow factor. Don't get me wrong, it still would have been a sight to see and I would have put this video together regardless of the weather. Well, unless it started to rain. Nonetheless, the dramatic blue sky and white cotton-like clouds really put together this sort of heavenly feeling. And you know what? I'm going to stop trying to describe it and I'm going to let the video speak for itself.

[00:02:52]I wouldn't necessarily rate this as a scary or intimidating drive by any means, but it is one that requires focus and attention to the road in the event of any falling rocks, rocks on the road, or any drivers with California license plates. Nah, I'm just kidding. Unless it is a BMW or Dodge Challenger with California license plates, then you might want to keep an eye on them. Quick fun fact about Dodge Challengers.

[00:03:18]According to a lot.com, it's listed in the top 20 most repossessed cars of all time. And you know what? I'm not even surprised.

[00:03:29]Interstate 15 is what runs through the Virgin River Gorge. According to a.gov, gov. It's 15 mi long or 24 km from my homies on the metric system. It is a very short segment along Interstate 15, which runs from San Diego, California, all the way to the United States Canada border, spanning roughly 1,433 m across the western United States.

[00:03:54]There's a thing, you know.

[00:03:57]A few miles into the drive, I felt compelled to pull over, get out, and take my time absorbing all the surroundings. It was also a great time to stretch my legs after an hour and a half drive from Las Vegas.

[00:04:11]Scenery like this I can never get enough of, especially when it comes to gazing at the different rock layers, patterns, colors, and try to paint a picture in my head of how all of this formed millions of years ago, which I will attempt to explain to you later in the video.

[00:04:35]This was also the perfect time to get some stunning shots of the beautiful Virgin River.

[00:04:46]The Virgin River starts near Zion National Park in the beautiful southwestern Utah and flows 162 m 260 km southwest meandering through Utah, Arizona and Nevada, finally emptying into Lake Meade, or as I call it, puddle me. Depending on the time of day and year, the color of the Virgin River can vary from chocolate milk brown during flash floods to shades of clear blue and my favorite, blue green on calm days when light reflects off the water.

[00:05:26]Before Interstate 15 ever passed through the Virgin River Gorge, traveling between Las Vegas and Utah was a completely different experience. Back in the early 1900s, drivers heading north or south through this region primarily relied on older highways like US Route 91, which is the highway you see highlighted in red.

[00:05:48]That road avoided the gorge entirely because the canyon was considered far too rugged and dangerous to build through at the time. Instead, Route 91 crossed through northwestern Arizona by way of Beaver Dam, located just north of Littlefield, Arizona.

[00:06:05]US Route 91 and smaller desert routes that wound around the canyon were heavily utilized rather than going directly through it.

[00:06:14]The yellow line here shows where Interstate 15 would cut through the canyon today. And as you can see, it saved a lot of time.

[00:06:23]And by the 1950s, the idea of building a highway through the gorge started to surface. America was in the middle of building the interstate highway system signed into law by President Dwight D.

[00:06:34]Eisenhower in 1956.

[00:06:37]The goal was to connect major cities across the country with faster, safer, modern highways.

[00:06:44]Interstate 15 was planned to become a major corridor linking Southern California, Las Vegas, Utah, Idaho, and beyond.

[00:06:54]There was just one massive problem standing in the way. the Virgin River Gorge.

[00:07:02]At the time, many engineers believed routing a freeway directly through the gorge was nearly impossible. The canyon was extremely narrow, filled with steep cliffs, unstable rock, and the constantly winding Virgin River. Some sections barely had enough flat land to fit a two-lane road, let alone a full interstate highway.

[00:07:22]Because of this, planners debated bypassing the gorge altogether and routing Interstate 15 farther north through Nevada. But eventually, engineers decided the direct route through Arizona would save travelers nearly 20 m and create a much more efficient connection between Las Vegas and Utah.

[00:07:40]Now, that being said, construction officially began in the early 1960s.

[00:07:45]Almost immediately, the project turned into one of the most difficult rural interstate projects in the entire United States. Workers had to blast enormous amounts of rock from the canyon walls just to create enough space for the roadway. In many places, crews were trapped between vertical cliffs on one side and the Virgin River on the other.

[00:08:05]According to a.gov, the original road builders rerouted the river channel in 12 places to fit the freeway design. And along with that, 1 million cubic yards of granite were removed in several locations to rechanle the river. There are also seven I-15 bridges throughout the gorge.

[00:08:24]The terrain was so challenging that construction moved slowly. Engineers had to design dozens of bridges, retaining walls, drainage systems, and elevated sections of highway just to navigate the twisting canyon.

[00:08:37]Extreme summer heat inside the gorge made conditions even more brutal for the workers. Heck, engineers even had to repel down the 400 ft rock faces just to set the explosive charges.

[00:08:50]High winds, flash flooding, and quicksand consistently hindered construction. According to desireette.com, back in 1969, a helicopter that was surveying the area ended up crashing and killing the pilot.

[00:09:03]It seemed like the workers weren't safe on the ground, the cliffs, or even in the air.

[00:09:09]By the early 1970s, costs had skyrocketed far beyond original estimates. The final price tag for the Arizona section through the Virgin River Gorge reached roughly $10 million per mile, an astonishing amount for the time, making it one of the most expensive stretches of rural interstate highway ever built in America.

[00:09:30]After nearly a decade of blasting, excavation, and bridge construction, Interstate 15 through the Virgin River Gorge finally opened to traffic in December of 1973.

[00:09:42]Now, the impact was immediate. Travel between Las Vegas and Salt Lake City became dramatically faster and more direct. What had once been a slower desert route around the canyon was transformed into a major transportation corridor carrying millions of travelers every year.

[00:10:00]But the interstate also changed the character of the area forever. Before Interstate 15, the Virgin River Gorge was one of the most isolated landscapes in the region. Visited mostly by ranchers, explorers, and locals familiar with the harsh desert terrain.

[00:10:16]Today, the roar of semitrs, non-stop traffic, and even the sound of used Honda Civics with holes drilled into their mufflers echoes through a canyon that had remained largely untouched for millions of years. And yet, despite all the engineering, the gorge still feels wild. Even now, driving through it almost feels unreal. Massive cliffs towering overhead while the interstate twists tightly through a canyon carved by the Virgin River over countless ages.

[00:10:46]Even though we made it out of the canyon part, we are technically still in the Virgin River Gorge with about 8 m left.

[00:10:53]We don't see towering canyon walls hugging the road like before, but this is what I refer to as the second act of the drive because the land starts to open up.

[00:11:04]We can begin to see many miles in each direction. And instead of having front row seats to the ancient cliff faces as the drive continues on, we get better views of the beautiful layered rock in the distance, shaped by thousands of years of erosion, with each layer denoting a different time period in history.

[00:11:24]Now, there are two stories being told in this video. The one I shared with you earlier about the history of the highway from start to finish, and the other is its geological history. After all, how does something like this form? It certainly didn't come together with the flick of a wand or the result of a single catastrophic event.

[00:11:44]Believe it or not, everything I've been showing you, such as the cliffs, mountains, ridges, peaks, but you name it, this all started to form nearly 70 million years ago. Or so they say. You see, long before Interstate 15 ever cut through the Virgin River Gorge, this entire landscape looked completely different. Like Nikki Glazer before her facelift. Hey, somebody had to say it.

[00:12:10]Millions of years ago, the area you see today was buried beneath ancient seas, deserts, and flood plains that slowly stacked layer upon layer of sediment across the region. Over time, those layers hardened into the colorful sandstone and limestone cliffs that now tower above the canyon.

[00:12:30]Then came the real transformation.

[00:12:33]Powerful forces beneath the earth slowly pushed the Colorado Plateau upward. Real quick, for those of you that may not know, the Colorado Plateau is an elevated region situated around the four corners area in the southwest, rising to elevations of up to 7,000 ft or 2,133 m for my audience on the metric system.

[00:12:55]However, the gorge isn't necessarily located within the boundaries of the Colorado Plateau, but it's literally a stones throw out of the boundaries, and its shape was heavily influenced by it.

[00:13:14]As the Colorado Plateau pushed upward, the Virgin River continued flowing across the land. Instead of being forced away, the river carved downward into the rising rock, slowly slicing deeper and deeper over millions of years until it created the massive gorge we see today.

[00:13:32]What's incredible is that the Virgin River itself is relatively small, but with enough time, water becomes one of the most powerful forces on Earth. Aside from women, money, and mortgage payments, the river acted almost like a giant saw blade, carrying sand, and sediment that slowly ground away at the rock for millions of years.

[00:13:55]For most of human history, the gorge remained extremely isolated and difficult to travel through. Native people lived throughout the surrounding desert regions for thousands of years, but the gorge itself was rugged, steep, and unforgiving terrain.

[00:14:10]Even early explorers and settlers often avoided trying to move directly through it because of how difficult the canyon was to navigate. But fast forward to the 20th century, and suddenly this remote canyon became incredibly important.

[00:14:24]According to Arizona Department of Transportation, approximately 23,000 vehicles travel through the gorge on Interstate 15 daily. And on another day, I'm coming back and doing some more in-depth exploring on foot.

[00:14:40]It was extremely difficult to keep my eyes on the road and not get distracted by the majestic surroundings, but I did notice several small aloves tucked away high up on the cliff faces, and I can't wait to see what's in them.

[00:14:54]As I was putting this video together, I learned that the gorge is also a hot spot for finding fossils.

[00:15:01]The only downside to hiking and exploring the canyon is that I will have limited to no use of my drone since the highway is teetering on the edge of a wilderness area, which you cannot fly drones in. And at no point was I ever flying within the wilderness area. But I repeatedly kept checking to make sure I wasn't because if you look at the sectional charts online, there isn't much clearance on either side of the road to fly a drone, depending on where you are in the gorge.

[00:15:30]If you watch this video and decide to make the drive through the gorge, here is a few things to keep in mind. Number one, there are multiple places you can safely pull over, get out, stretch your legs, and have a smoke break while your wife and kids run around and take pictures of the gorge on their iPhones that you worked a lot of overtime to afford. And you just know by the end of the trip, someone is going to lose theirs or it's going to get damaged. And then the wife is going to tell the kids, "Don't worry, we can always get you another one." All while you take another drag of your cigarette and grit your teeth. We've all been there.

[00:16:03]Anyways, number two, make sure you have plenty of gas because that ties us directly to number three. There is no cell reception in the gorge, at least for the first few miles. And it always seems like car trouble pops up when there is no reception. The more you know.

[00:16:20]Now, we are approaching exit 27 to Black Rock Road, and this is what I would consider the end of the Virgin River Gorge Drive. However, the video isn't over yet. If I would have kept going a few more miles, I would have ended up in the little town of St. George, Utah.

[00:16:36]I pulled over here to take a quick break, swap out some batteries on my equipment, and I shot this clip of the beautiful Pine Valley Mountains. This is a mountain range that I would love to hike someday.

[00:16:49]I thought about ending the video here since I already made it from point A to point B, got all the shots I needed, and explained everything I thought was pertinent to the video.

[00:16:59]But with most scenic drives, there's always two parts to it. The initial drive through and the drive back. Sure, the views are similar, but it's a completely different perspective. And often times, the second round through, we tend to notice things that we didn't see the first time. That being said, I'm going to let this next clip play through in its entirety. And if you're wondering why I haven't uploaded a video in nearly a month, here's why. First of all, I'm not dead. I didn't get lost. I did not get hurt. And I did not get teleported to another universe. Although that would be cool. The reason why I haven't uploaded in nearly a month is because I took a break. And that's it. I haven't taken an upload break since August of 2024. So, this was a muchneeded break to reset, recharge, and to get back into uploading with a fresh mind. Prior to uploading this video, I believe I have five videos already shot. They just need to be edited and uploaded. And by the time this video airs, I will have filmed at least another four. And there is one big change coming to this channel, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.

[00:20:29]We are officially right back to where we started. Make sure you let me know in the comments section if you have ever done this drive before. And if you haven't, make sure you put it on your 2026 summer bucket list. You will not regret it. And hey, if you want to see more desert adventures just like this one, all you got to do is click that playlist in the upper lefthand corner.