we leave on sunday and part of the freeway is gone!

[kris14]

we were planning on taking I-15 all the way. Then the flood on Monday destroyed the road. There is a detour through Valley of fire state park just outside of Mesquite NV. its a scenic byway so im sure speeds are slower. But has anyone drove it and can tell me how long it takes? This is already a 15 hr drive and i don't know if i want to drive any longer than 10 hrs in one day. Had planned on stopping in Vegas. Thinking of leaving sat. night if this is going to add more than 2 hrs to the drive.

 

[Dot2Vegas]

we were planning on taking I-15 all the way. Then the flood on Monday destroyed the road. There is a detour through Valley of fire state park just outside of Mesquite NV. its a scenic byway so im sure speeds are slower. But has anyone drove it and can tell me how long it takes? This is already a 15 hr drive and i don't know if i want to drive any longer than 10 hrs in one day. Had planned on stopping in Vegas. Thinking of leaving sat. night if this is going to add more than 2 hrs to the drive.

I live near Las Vegas. Are you coming from the Utah area? Ive heard talk here that the once 90min drive drive from Vegas to St. George is taking almost 8 hours. You detour through Arizona on the 93, I believe. I would check the highway website, Google could help you find that info. They will probably have the best routes and maybe estimated times. Im sorry that you have to drive through that! It looks horrible up there. Be safe!

 

[2tinkerbell]

I've not taken the detour but have driven the route. I would suggest that you stay overnight in St. George. That way you are taking the detour in the morning when you are fresh.

The freeway looks horrible! Initially I heard 4 days to fix it, but, by the looks of it, I would imagine 4 days is pushing it.

Google going the detour between St. George and Las Vegas to find out how long. You are right, there is no way it is going to be freeway speeds and I am sure it is bumper to bumper traffic as I recall it is single lane both way type of a road.

 

[auteur55]

I have the same problem I'm supposed to leave on Saturday. I heard the detour adds about two hours and not eight. The problem with staying in St. George you have to wake up and drive an hour back up north to get on the Cedar city exit. They were saying that they were hoping to have one lane open going north and south by the weekend. I'm hoping and praying that happens

 

[mikana876]

Were taking I-15 as well... but we don't leave for 10 days. Is it likely to be fixed (or at least driveable) by then?

 

[scrapshappen]

I heard they were hoping to have a single lane in each direction of I-15 open by the weekend. That might be optimistic though. I also heard that the passenger vehicle route through Valley of Fire is much quicker than the other route that commercial vehicles must travel (where you detour from Cedar City and over to 93).

Google maps says it adds an hour to the drive without traffic. However, I can't really imagine a scenario where there won't be horrendous traffic even if they have one lane open on I-15. Best bet might be to stay over night in St. George and then leave extra early in the morning to avoid as much of it as possible. On a good day with no traffic, it's about 5.5 hours from St. George to Anaheim. So I'd plan on it taking your 7-8.5 hours.

The other bonus to leaving as early as possible is that you hopefully will get to Southern CA before rush hour there.

The hotel we generally stay in St. George is the Hilton Garden on the south end of town. But there are lots of other options.

Good luck! My DH is actually working in LA this week and has to make the drive back sometime next week so I'm hoping it's taken care of soon too.

 

[Dot2Vegas]

Were taking I-15 as well... but we don't leave for 10 days. Is it likely to be fixed (or at least driveable) by then?

Im hearing that it will be drivable by then. But most likely with one or two functioning lanes. Rumor here is that this will take several months to fix completely. What a nightmare!

 

[auteur55]

There wouldn't be rush hour traffic on a Sunday in S Cali right? We were staying in vegas then driving rest of the way sunday morning for check in. Any idea what the drive time would be on a sunday morning?

 

[kris14]

my cousin is doing the drive friday night, so ill know more then. i just hate the uncertainty of the whole thing. do i take an extra day off work and take 3 days to drive, or cancel my room in Vegas and stay in St. George instead?

 

[mikana876]

I heard they were hoping to have a single lane in each direction of I-15 open by the weekend. That might be optimistic though. I also heard that the passenger vehicle route through Valley of Fire is much quicker than the other route that commercial vehicles must travel (where you detour from Cedar City and over to 93).

Google maps says it adds an hour to the drive without traffic. However, I can't really imagine a scenario where there won't be horrendous traffic even if they have one lane open on I-15. Best bet might be to stay over night in St. George and then leave extra early in the morning to avoid as much of it as possible. On a good day with no traffic, it's about 5.5 hours from St. George to Anaheim. So I'd plan on it taking your 7-8.5 hours.

The other bonus to leaving as early as possible is that you hopefully will get to Southern CA before rush hour there.

The hotel we generally stay in St. George is the Hilton Garden on the south end of town. But there are lots of other options.

Good luck! My DH is actually working in LA this week and has to make the drive back sometime next week so I'm hoping it's taken care of soon too.

Which way do we go to take the Valley of Fire route (southbound)? I'm researching it but so far I'm just getting confused by all of the different articles which seem to have conflicting information.

 

[PrincessShmoo]

Personally, I'd probably head west (though Reno) to the I-5 and head down to Disneyland that way. By the time you go back home, the I-15 should be do-able.

Cutting over on the 80 to I-5 will be about 5 hours longer than directly down I-15, but it's your call as to whether you want to spend that 5 hours traveling at a higher rate of speed, or slower on the detour.

 

[scrapshappen]

Which way do we go to take the Valley of Fire route (southbound)? I'm researching it but so far I'm just getting confused by all of the different articles which seem to have conflicting information.

This is where I got my information:

https://www.nevadadot.com/Traveler_Info/i15Detour.aspx

 

[scrapshappen]

There wouldn't be rush hour traffic on a Sunday in S Cali right? We were staying in vegas then driving rest of the way sunday morning for check in. Any idea what the drive time would be on a sunday morning?

We just did the drive from St. George to Anaheim on Sunday, August 17 and we got stuck in traffic between Vegas and the California border around 1 p.m. Like really, really bad traffic. 20 MPH when we were moving. Once we finally got to the Orange County area, there were mild traffic delays, but nothing like we saw out on the desert. It took us about two hours longer than normal to do the drive. On Sunday, you are dealing with all the people going back to LA after spending the weekend in Vegas so the earlier you can get started the better.

 

[scrapshappen]

my cousin is doing the drive friday night, so ill know more then. i just hate the uncertainty of the whole thing. do i take an extra day off work and take 3 days to drive, or cancel my room in Vegas and stay in St. George instead?

I wouldn't take an extra day off. I would just stay in St. George. That gives you about nine hours the first day anyway, right?

 

[mikana876]

This is where I got my information:

https://www.nevadadot.com/Traveler_Info/i15Detour.aspx

Thank you! Hopefully there is a southbound lane open so we don't have to use any detour, but it's nice to know there's something!

 

[scrapshappen]

I don't know where in Idaho you are coming from, but a better option than doing I-80 to I-5 would be to go through Twin Falls and down through Jackpot and take 93 the entire way down to Vegas. Then you could pick up 15 after the break. Just a thought.

 

[kris14]

we're coming from idaho falls. think i have it figured out. cancelled our room in vegas, and staying in mesquite nv. just before the detour. that way we can get through it early in the day so traffic might not be as bad.

 

[scrapshappen]

we're coming from idaho falls. think i have it figured out. cancelled our room in vegas, and staying in mesquite nv. just before the detour. that way we can get through it early in the day so traffic might not be as bad.

Good luck!! Our local news in SLC is reporting that they should have one lane open in both directions on I-15 tomorrow. I used to work in public relations for a couple of different departments for the State of Utah and I can't even begin to imagine all the headaches Nevada has right now.

And I don't know if this will help or not, but my brother said this was posted on the BYU fan boards yesterday: "we found a great route around the closed area of I-15. We drove through Henderson to the LV Wash, then took the road to Overton, getting on I-15 at the Overton on ramp. This bypasses the Valley of Fire and all the NB traffic lined up to get off I-15 at the Valley of Fire exit. All trucks are being sent around via US 93, so there are no semis until you get to Cedar City. It took us about 30 minutes longer to get from LV to Mesquite. Other than that, easy trip. We had planned on staying the night in Cedar City, thinking it would take us six hours to get there, but we just pushed on through to Provo. We'll take the same route going home."

 

[auteur55]

Yes I'm hearing as well that they are confident they will have one lane open north and southbound tomorrow. So you should be fine. If they get a lane open is there any reason to do a detour?

 

[Dot2Vegas]

Yes I'm hearing as well that they are confident they will have one lane open north and southbound tomorrow. So you should be fine. If they get a lane open is there any reason to do a detour?

The only reason I can think would be to avoid really bad traffic? But if you time it right and leave early or late enough then that shouldn't be an issue.