Sand Hollow Day Trip
in my Nissan Leaf

May 24, 2013

Mark D Larsen


Reservoir voyeur
(Click to enlarge)


When I first decided to build a home in this area, and still had my West Wight Potter sailboat “Harried Potter,” I drove to the opposite side of the St. George area to check out the reservoir at Sand Hollow State Park. It is a rather unique lake, formed by diverting water through a 56" wide pipe from Quail Creek Reservoir a few miles farther upstream on the Virgin River. Two long, short dams hold that water in a flat plain, so the lake is fairly wide, but not very deep. Because it is so shallow, I deduced that it would not be very good for sailing: centerboards, keels, and rudders would probably ground out on its numerous sandbars all around the shoreline.

Ever since taking delivery, I have wanted to drive my Leaf back to Sand Hollow to take a few photos with the dunes and water. By my estimates, it would be about a 60-mile round trip, but would entail driving a portion of the distance at higher speed along the same highway I have driven to La Verkin and Zion National Park. Since that road drops in elevation to get to the lake, I anticipated that getting there would not prove problematic, but climbing back up it on the return trip would undoubtedly reduce the total range achievable with a full charge. On the left below is my Leaf’s display upon departure, showing a completely exaggerated range guess'timate on the GOM. On the right is a map of the route to Sand Hollow.


Wild guess
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The plot thickens
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Hollow hollow sign
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Dam it all!
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Warning sign...
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...and they’re not kidding!
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Let’s summit up
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Campground oasis
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Readout on arrival
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All the way home
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Above on the left is the display when I arrived at a lookout on the far eastern side of the reservoir. As you can see, I had traveled 32 miles, used 4 of the 12 charge bars, averaged 5.5 miles-per-kWh, and the GOM guessed 54 miles of remaining range.

The return trip, as anticipated, depleted even more from the battery pack —and range. The final readout on the right above shows that, when I pulled into the garage again, I had traveled 67.1 miles, 3.1 more than double the halfway odometer because of a detour to a grocery store in St. George. I had used 6 more charge bars, and the GOM showed 15 miles remaining. The odometer and GOM thus add up to a total theoretical range of 82.1 miles for the 100% charge. I was particularly pleased that, despite the ascent at highway speed and using air conditioning for the entire trip, the subsequent slower detour through the streets in St. George helped maintain the same 5.5 miles-per-kWh average.

Next time... I plan to load my Leaf up with an ice chest, picnic basket, beach towels, plenty of sunscreen, and my bathing suit, to take full advantage of those sandy beaches.