Day Trip to Kolob Canyons in my Nissan Leaf October 28, 2012 Mark D Larsen

Between a Rock and a Hard Place (Click to enlarge)

To celebrate 7-months to the day since taking delivery of my Nissan Leaf, I decided to again drive to Zion National Park, but this time to the separate, northern entrance at “Kolob Canyons.” Readers will undoubtedly wonder why it has such an odd name. Believe it or not, it comes from the predominant Mormon religion here in Utah. According to their “scripture,” The Book of Abraham, “Kolob” is the name of the star or planet where god dwells in the far reaches of space (Abraham 3:2-9). One can only suppose that, because the canyons are so majestic and awe-inspiring, the first Mormon settlers in this area thought they were literally “out-of-this-world.” Of course, we heretics like to point out, tongue-in-cheek, that if you spell Kolob backwards... it applies raunchy British humor to the Mormons’ doctrinal namesake.

I had wanted to take this day trip in my Leaf for many months, but knew that it would take a bit of planning because a full charge would not be sufficient for the entire round trip of over 90 miles. Specifically, it would not only require freeway speeds on I-15 for most of the journey, but also a significant elevation climb from 3,081 feet at our home to 6,220 feet at the highest overlook in the park. I would obviously have to recharge somewhere along the way.

I gave my Leaf a 100% charge in the morning, as shown in the CarWings display below on the left. As you can see, given my previous driving pattern, it predicted a range of 86 miles. When I got in the Leaf and shifted into ECO mode, however, the guess-o-meter increased that estimate to 95 miles in the middle photo below. On the right is a map showing the route I would take.

Fill ‘er up (click to enlarge)

ECO Echo (click to enlarge)

It’s a plot (click to enlarge)

If you click on the map to enlarge it, you will see that I planned to drive to the town of Leeds (letter B), about halfway there, to plug in at the Zion West RV Park. To save electrons, I stayed on slower backroads for some of that leg of the journey, but eventually had to enter the freeway to get to Leeds. A little over an hour later, I arrived at the Zion RV Park in the photo below on the left. You can see in the middle photo that I had driven 27 miles at 4.9 miles-per-kWh, drained 4 charge bars from the pack, and the guess-o-meter estimated 55 miles of range left. I plugged in my upgraded cordset to the 50 amp, 240V outlet as shown below on the right.

Made in the shade (click to enlarge)

Four bars down (click to enlarge)

Time for Lunch (click to enlarge)

I knew it would take a couple of hours to fill the pack back up, so I had lunch and read the Sunday paper while ‘Tisa took a nap in her car seat. Then we went for a walk to enjoy the view of Pine Mountain peeking over the red rock formations to the west, show below on the left. At a little after 2:00 pm, the pack was again charged to 100%, but because of the climb to Leeds and freeway speeds so far, this time the GOM was predicting only 85 miles of range, shown below in the middle photo. I gladly paid the owners of the RV park $5 for the electricity, got back on I-15, and after about 20 minutes arrived at the Kolob Canyons Visitor Center at the entrance to the park, shown on the right below.

Desert dessert (click to enlarge)

I’m full (click to enlarge)

Arrival at the visitor center (click to enlarge)

As you can see below on the left, I had now driven 44.9 miles, the average had dropped to 3.8 miles-per-kWh, four charge bars had again disappeared, and the GOM now predicted only 42 miles remaining —less than I had driven. This did not worry me, as I knew we would dropping back down in elevation on the return trip, and thus regenerative braking would recover some of the charge. I was delighted to see that, since the last time I had visited Kolob Canyons, the park service had installed a good sized solar array to power the visitor center, shown below in the middle.

Readout at the visitor center (click to enlarge)

Panel discussion (click to enlarge)

Your recovery dollars at work (click to enlarge)

Above on the right, you can see the back of the solar panels beyond where I parked my Leaf: notice what the sign says on the fence around the array. I would much rather see our tax dollars used for projects like this instead of subsidizing the oil industry! I made a point of telling the park ranger that I was very pleased to see their solar panels, and hoped that they would also eventually consider installing some EVSEs. He was intrigued to see my Leaf, and indicated that such plans were in the works at various National Parks —but couldn’t predict when they might happen here.

The sole road in and out of the park is only 5 miles long, but climbs even higher as it winds from viewpoint to viewpoint. The photos below fail to do justice to the wide panorama of sheer walls and cliffs that extend all along the canyons.

Entering the canyons (click to enlarge)

Halfway point (click to enlarge)

At the highest lookout (click to enlarge)

The vistas of the Kolob Canyons are all breathtaking. It is truly wondrous to contemplate the geological forces required to carve out these canyons and formations over immense eons of time, hundreds of millions of years before homo sapiens could behold the planet’s handiwork. What a humbling experience to gaze upon such panoramas and sense that overwhelming realization that our short lives are nothing —nothing!— in the grander scheme of things in this universe.

After touring the park for over an hour, we again stopped at the visitor center for a bathroom break. Thanks to regenerative braking when descending the road from the highest viewpoint, the GOM now showed 59 miles of range left and the average was still 3.8 miles-per-kWh. However, half of the charge bars were now missing, as shown below on the left.

Before heading home (click to enlarge)

Final display (click to enlarge)

Carwings begs to differ (click to enlarge)

The middle photo above shows the result when we arrived home an hour later. Thanks to regenerative braking during the descent, the miles-per-kWh had increased to 4.6. However, the freeway speeds all the way to St. George had nonetheless taken their toll: only the two red charge bars were now visible, with 14 miles left on the GOM. When I signed onto CarWings that evening, the results were even more dire: only one red bar with an 8% charge in the pack, and 12 miles of range left. My guess is that the missing 2 miles is the difference between ECO and Drive mode. Regardless... we made it!

Here is what CarWings summarized for the entire trip —which oddly enough also disagrees with the dashboard’s final readout. Rather than 97.8 miles, it reported that the round trip was 95.4 miles. At least the miles-per-kWh matched!

In all, it was a memorable 7-month celebration with my Leaf, a great day trip, one that I'll have to take again sometime soon. Hopefully by then they will have installed those anticipated EVSEs at the visitor center!