Parleys Canyon is a canyon located in the
U.S.
The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 contiguous ...
state of
Utah
Utah is a landlocked state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is one of the Four Corners states, sharing a border with Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico. It also borders Wyoming to the northea ...
. The canyon provides the route of
Interstate 80
Interstate 80 (I-80) is an east–west transcontinental freeway that crosses the United States from San Francisco, California, to Teaneck, New Jersey, in the New York metropolitan area. The highway was designated in 1956 as one of the ori ...
(I-80) (and previously the
Lincoln Highway
The Lincoln Highway is one of the first transcontinental highways in the United States and one of the first highways designed expressly for automobiles. Conceived in 1912 by Indiana entrepreneur Carl G. Fisher, and formally dedicated Octob ...
,
U.S. Route 40, and a railroad) up the western slope of the
Wasatch Mountains
The Wasatch Range ( ) or Wasatch Mountains is a mountain range in the western United States that runs about from the Utah-Idaho border south to central Utah. It is the western edge of the greater Rocky Mountains, and the eastern edge of the G ...
and is a relatively wide, straight canyon other than near its mouth. The
mountain pass
A mountain pass is a navigable route through a mountain range or over a ridge. Since mountain ranges can present formidable barriers to travel, passes have played a key role in trade, war, and both Human migration, human and animal migration t ...
at the top of the canyon is known as Parleys Summit. With an elevation of , the pass is the highest point along I-80 in the state of Utah. Both features are named for
Parley P. Pratt, an early settler of the
Salt Lake Valley
Salt Lake Valley is a valley in Salt Lake County, Utah, Salt Lake County in the north-central portion of the U.S. state of Utah. It contains Salt Lake City, Utah, Salt Lake City and many of its suburbs, notably Murray, Utah, Murray, Sandy, Uta ...
and leader of
the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, informally known as the LDS Church or Mormon Church, is a Nontrinitarianism, nontrinitarian Restorationism, restorationist Christianity, Christian Christian denomination, denomination and the ...
who surveyed the area to find a better transportation route through the Wasatch Mountains than the previous route which traversed
Emigration Canyon.
Description

Parleys Canyon begins where
I-215 merges into I-80 in
Salt Lake City
Salt Lake City, often shortened to Salt Lake or SLC, is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Utah. It is the county seat of Salt Lake County, the most populous county in the state. The city is the core of the Salt Lake Ci ...
and ends at Parleys Summit. The lower part of the canyon is relatively twisty and narrow and had to be
dynamite
Dynamite is an explosive made of nitroglycerin, sorbents (such as powdered shells or clay), and Stabilizer (chemistry), stabilizers. It was invented by the Swedish people, Swedish chemist and engineer Alfred Nobel in Geesthacht, Northern German ...
d to make way for I-80. Despite this, the interstate remains six or more lanes wide throughout the canyon; it is built over Parleys Creek in many places. Work is also underway to extend the
Parleys Trail multi-use path
A shared-use path, mixed-use path or multi-use pathway is a path which is "designed to accommodate the movement of pedestrians and cyclists". Examples of shared-use paths include sidewalks designated as shared-use, bridleways and rail trails. A ...
through this segment to improve non-motorized access.
The canyon widens dramatically near
Mountain Dell Dam and
Utah State Route 65 (SR-65) splits from the freeway (which turns southeast temporarily) to provide access to
Morgan County to the northeast. SR-65 also provides a connection to a local road leading over the ridge to
Emigration Canyon in the same area where the
Mormon trail
The Mormon Trail is the route from Illinois to Utah on which Mormon pioneers (members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) traveled from 1846 to 1869. Today, the Mormon Trail is a part of the United States National Trails Syst ...
crossed into that canyon.
Little Dell Dam can be seen higher up on the side of Parleys Canyon in this area. As the freeway turns back toward the east, there is also an exit for the road leading up
Lambs Canyon (a side canyon of Parleys Canyon).

The area around Parleys Summit is part of the
Summit Park census-designated place
A census-designated place (CDP) is a Place (United States Census Bureau), concentration of population defined by the United States Census Bureau for statistical purposes only.
CDPs have been used in each decennial census since 1980 as the counte ...
(CDP). However, this area is more commonly referred to as Jeremy Ranch or Parleys Summit. Here the canyon is wide enough to form large communities along the sides of the freeway along the gentle mountain slopes. On the other side of the summit the freeway continues into the
Snyderville Basin, which is where the popular resort town of
Park City is located. Also within the basin is the ski jump built for the
2002 Winter Olympic Games and the large shopping district at
Kimball Junction.
Wildlife crossing
A $5m wildlife overpass was completed in December 2018 to allow wildlife to cross I-80 safely. The overpass is 50 feet wide and 320 feet long; animals near that location by exit 140 are funneled onto the overpass with 3.5 miles of fencing.
Climate
History
The canyon receives its name from
Parley P. Pratt who was assigned to explore the canyon, called Big Canyon at the time, and to build a toll road, called the Golden Pass Toll Road.
Construction on the road started in 1848 and was completed in 1850. The road through Parleys Canyon became the primary route into the
Salt Lake Valley
Salt Lake Valley is a valley in Salt Lake County, Utah, Salt Lake County in the north-central portion of the U.S. state of Utah. It contains Salt Lake City, Utah, Salt Lake City and many of its suburbs, notably Murray, Utah, Murray, Sandy, Uta ...
, surpassing the original route through
Emigration Canyon.
Later, in 1881, the canyon was used by a
narrow gauge
A narrow-gauge railway (narrow-gauge railroad in the US) is a railway with a track gauge (distance between the rails) narrower than . Most narrow-gauge railways are between and .
Since narrow-gauge railways are usually built with Minimum railw ...
branchline owned by the
Denver & Rio Grande Western Railway from Salt Lake to Park City (the
Salt Lake and Park City Railway). However, with its steep grades the line struggled to compete with the
Union Pacific
The Union Pacific Railroad is a Class I freight-hauling railroad that operates 8,300 locomotives over routes in 23 U.S. states west of Chicago and New Orleans. Union Pacific is the second largest railroad in the United States after BNSF, ...
's line (via
Coalville
Coalville is a town in the district of North West Leicestershire in Leicestershire in the East Midlands of England. In 2011, it had a population of 34,575. It lies on the A511 road, A511 between Leicester and Burton upon Trent, close to junct ...
, connecting to the UP main at
Echo
In audio signal processing and acoustics, an echo is a reflection of sound that arrives at the listener with a delay after the direct sound. The delay is directly proportional to the distance of the reflecting surface from the source and the lis ...
). The line was eventually rebuilt to
standard gauge
A standard-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge of . The standard gauge is also called Stephenson gauge (after George Stephenson), international gauge, UIC gauge, uniform gauge, normal gauge in Europe, and SGR in East Africa. It is the ...
by the
Rio Grande Western who along with their successor the Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad, operated trains up into the canyon until 1956.
[ Some remnants of the Rio Grande line through Parleys Canyon, namely the cuts for the horseshoe curves, are in use by local roads and visible off the shoulder of the freeway.][ A lower portion of the same railroad line outside of Parley's Canyon, remains in use in the present day as the right of way for the UTA S-Line streetcar.
]
References
External links
Articles and history about Parley's Canyon
Openstreetmap
{{Authority control
Canyons and gorges of Utah
Lincoln Highway
Canyons and gorges of Salt Lake County, Utah
Landforms of Summit County, Utah
Mountain passes of Utah
U.S. Route 40
Wasatch Range
Interstate 80