The road east La Verkin
State designation 1990, national designation 2021, western end here
The Zion Park Scenic Byway starts on the edge of La Verkin.
The junction of State Route 9 and SR-17 is mile zero of a 54 mile national scenic byway that ends at Zion's east entrance. Here is the drive, the traffic season, the last real services, the dollar bus, and the paved trail that is funded and still not built.
Start here
Mile zero of the byway is a junction on the edge of town.
State Route 9 runs through the middle of La Verkin as State Street, and where it meets SR-17 on the edge of town the road becomes something with a formal name. The Utah Legislature designated the whole of SR-9 a State Scenic Byway in 1990, about 57 miles from I-15 at Hurricane across to US-89 at Mt Carmel Junction. In 2021 the federal designation followed for the 54 miles running east from that La Verkin junction to Zion's east entrance.
That makes this town the western end of a National Scenic Byway, which is a genuinely unusual thing for a place of 4,500 people to be, and which almost nobody who lives here mentions. The practical version is more useful anyway: La Verkin is the last town heading east with a full grocery store, ordinary fuel, and prices that have not been set by proximity to a national park.
This page takes the road. It does not take the park. Springdale walks in through the pedestrian gate, Virgin owns the high country up Kolob Terrace Road, Rockville owns the drive in from four miles out, and Hurricane owns the day trip from the other side of the gorge. What belongs here is the byway itself, from the end where it starts.
The byway, at a glance
1990
SR-9 designated a state scenic byway
2021
national scenic byway designation
54 mi
La Verkin to Zion's east entrance
~20 mi
to the south entrance at Springdale
The designation, and the hole in the middle of it
Fifty four miles, with one town left out of the paperwork.
The national designation did not come from a scenic committee deciding the road was pretty. It came from an alliance of the towns along it putting together a corridor management plan, which is the document a road needs before the federal programme will look at it. La Verkin is the western terminus because that is where the plan started, at the SR-9 and SR-17 junction.
At the time the plan was assembled, Kane County, which holds the stretch from Zion's east entrance out to Mt Carmel Junction, and Hurricane City on the western end, both opted out of the process. That is why the designated corridor runs from a junction in La Verkin rather than from the interstate, and why the last few miles to US-89 are not part of it. There is also a gap in the designation at the Town of Virgin.
None of that changes the driving. It changes the funding, the signage and which local governments sit at the table when the corridor gets planned, and it is worth knowing because the same table decides things like the paved trail below. Virgin has since supported the updated plan and Kane County has expressed interest in extending it, so the map may fill in.
| State designation | National designation | |
|---|---|---|
| Year | 1990 | 2021 |
| Who granted it | The Utah Legislature | The federal scenic byways programme |
| Extent | All of SR-9, about 57 miles | 54 miles, La Verkin junction to Zion's east entrance |
| Gaps | None | A gap at the Town of Virgin; Kane County's miles not included |
Two designations, thirty one years apart, covering nearly but not exactly the same road.
The drive east
Twenty miles to the park gate, and four towns in between.
From the junction the road climbs out of the La Verkin bench, past mesas and the head of the gorge, and settles into a run of small towns strung along the river. Virgin comes first at about six miles, and the road out the back of it is the one that climbs onto Kolob Terrace. Rockville follows, then Springdale, then the park gate at about twenty miles and roughly twenty seven minutes from town.
The first ten miles out of La Verkin are the underrated part, and they are best in the last hour of light, when the cliffs on the north side go orange and the traffic heading the other way has already gone home. It is a genuinely good short drive that most people experience as a commute to somewhere else.
Each of those towns has its own page here, written from its own ground: Virgin for the west side of the park and the road up to the reservoir, Rockville for the quiet mile and the 1924 bridge, and Springdale for walking into Zion without a car. This page hands them the ground rather than describing it twice.
Park entry costs more in 2026 than most published guidance says, for some visitors. Since 1 January 2026 a surcharge applies at Zion and ten other parks for visitors who are not United States residents: $100 per person aged 16 and over on top of the ordinary entrance fee, or a $250 non resident annual pass covering the holder plus other passengers in one non commercial vehicle. Check current fees before pricing a park day.
Two ways up this road that are not a car
A dollar bus that runs, and a paved trail that does not exist yet.
The bus is real. SunTran's Zion Route started in late 2024 and runs between St. George and Springdale by way of Hurricane, La Verkin and Virgin, Monday through Saturday, with a base fare of one dollar. It is the first scheduled public transport this corridor has had, it is built around the park run rather than a working day, and park employees and people without a second car use it far more than visitors do. Check the current timetable rather than any summary, because it has already changed once.
The trail is not. The Zion Corridor Trail is a planned paved path roughly 18 miles long and 12 feet wide, running from La Verkin to the park along this route, with an underpass, bridges and boardwalks. It is funded at about $13.5 million, roughly $10.8 million from UDOT and $2.7 million from Washington County, with a preferred route along an old highway bed just south of SR-9, and it has been working through environmental assessment and right of way clearance.
A destination development page has described it as finishing in 2026. That is a target rather than a status, and through La Verkin nothing of it is open. When it is built it will change this corridor more than the byway designation did, because a person on a bicycle currently has to share a park highway with everybody driving to a park.
A town that spent a century being driven through is now the western end of a national byway, a bus route and a trail that has not been built. Two of those three are already useful.
Keep reading
More of La Verkin on The Local.
Things to do
The top 8, ranked
Eight picks, ranked, from 107 degree water to a 1929 power plant on the canyon floor.
Read the guideThe hot springs
Zion Canyon Hot Springs
Fifty pools of mineral water, and why the original riverside site is still closed.
Read the guideThe river park
Confluence Park
Three hundred and forty four acres where two creeks reach the Virgin River together.
Read the guideThe history
The 800 foot tunnel
A dry bench, a river in a gorge, and 800 feet of tunnel as the answer.
Read the guideMoving here
Two city halls, one valley
Two cities four minutes apart, two of everything, and about 14 percent between them.
Read the guideThe companion
La Verkin, from a local
The springs, the river park, the tunnel and the byway, in one place.
Read the pageQuick answers
The byway, answered.
At the junction of State Route 9 and SR-17 on the edge of La Verkin. That junction is the western terminus of the 54 mile national scenic byway designated in 2021, which runs east from there to Zion National Park's east entrance.
At the state level, yes. The Utah Legislature designated the entirety of SR-9 a State Scenic Byway in 1990, about 57 miles from I-15 at Hurricane to US-89 at Mt Carmel Junction. The federal national scenic byway designation from 2021 covers a shorter 54 miles, from the La Verkin junction to the park's east entrance.
The national designation followed a corridor management plan assembled by the towns along the road. Kane County, which holds the miles from the east entrance out to Mt Carmel Junction, and Hurricane City on the western end both opted out of that process at the time, and there is a gap at the Town of Virgin. Virgin has since supported the updated plan and Kane County has expressed interest in extending it.
About 20 miles to the south entrance at Springdale, roughly a 27 minute drive east on State Route 9. Virgin is about six miles out, with Rockville and Springdale beyond it.
Roughly March through October, in the morning heading east and again around dusk heading west. Locals learn the rhythm and run errands in the middle of the day. The highway quiets down noticeably from November.
Yes. SunTran's Zion Route began in late 2024 and runs between St. George and Springdale by way of Hurricane, La Verkin and Virgin, Monday through Saturday, with a one dollar base fare. It is built around the park run rather than a commuting day, and the timetable has already changed once, so check the current schedule.
No. It is a planned paved path of roughly 18 miles and 12 feet wide, from La Verkin to the park along this route, funded at about $13.5 million with roughly $10.8 million from UDOT and $2.7 million from Washington County, and it has been working through environmental assessment and right of way clearance. Some promotional material has described it as finishing in 2026, which is a target rather than a status. Nothing of it is open through La Verkin.
The ordinary entrance fee applies, and since 1 January 2026 there is an additional surcharge for visitors who are not United States residents: $100 per person aged 16 and over, or a $250 non resident annual pass covering the holder plus other passengers in one non commercial vehicle. Zion is one of eleven parks where this applies. Check current fees directly before pricing a park day.
It is the practical one. Heading east this is the last town with a full grocery store, ordinary fuel prices and a pharmacy, and every town beyond it is smaller and set up around visitors rather than residents. Filling the tank and the cooler here rather than at the park gate is what people who live on this road actually do.
Living on a park highway is a different question from driving one.
The traffic season, which side of State Street a house sits on, and how far it is from the junction all show up in what a La Verkin property is worth and how it lives. Those are the details worth getting right before an offer rather than after.