When I looked at my computer this morning the background was the old photo below that my father took on a family trip in the summer of 1971. I decided to see if I could find where the photo was taken.
I was ten years old at the time and I remember the trip well. Our family was living in Phoenix, Arizona at the time. We met my grandparents, Russell and LaVon Phillips at the north rim of the Grand Canyon. They had driven down from their home in Rupert, Idaho. From there we headed to Zion National Park. I remember we stopped at Pipe Springs. This is memorable, because I had seen the place mentioned in an episode of Death Valley Days on TV. From there we continued west along Arizona Highway 389 toward Hurricane. Apparently, the drivers had a map showing a cutoff road that headed north toward Springdale a few miles west of the Utah-Arizona border at Hilldale and Colorado City. I now know that this cutoff starts north near Apple Valley.
I remember this road well. We were in our family camper and by brother, Kendall, and I usually rode in the cabover area so we could lie down and look out that front window. The road was fairly bumpy in places. Apparently we stopped, probably to look at maps, and my dad got the photo above.
To find the location of the photo I turned, naturally, to Google Maps. I found a road leading from Utah Highway 59 a few miles east of Apple Valley. This is labeled "Main Street" but does not appear to actually pass through the town of Apple Valley. The road goes north and then jogs eastward where it is called "South Bench Road". This eventually turns north where the name changes again to "Smithsonian Butte Road". This eventually hooks up with Utah Highway 9 near the town of Rockville, and you can head east to Springdale and the south entrance to Zion National Park.
By comparing the shape of the peaks in my dad's photo with those on the various images from Google Street View in Maps, I was able to locate the place the photo was taken fairly precisely; within a 100 yards or so. That location is three miles north of where Main Street meets Highway 59 and a little over a mile northeast of the town of Apple Valley. Below is the Google Street View image from that spot.
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