Tuesday, September 28, 2010

The Most Confusing Sign I Know

So, I've been living full-time on the east side of the Salt Lake Valley for about 10 years now, and I know my way around pretty well. And given the grid layout of our main roads and addresses when I don't know exactly where something is, I can usually figure it out pretty easily. One of the things that took me the longest time to learn was which of the Cottonwood canyons (Big & Little) was which. They both are fairly big if you ask me. :)

Over time I've learned that Big Cottonwood comes first (when you're coming from the north) and Little Cottonwood is second. But I don't feel like this is something I should have had to learn. With the simplest of signage, the Department of Transportation, or whoever is in charge of road signs, could clearly delineate which canyon is which. Sadly, they've instead given us this atrocity:

Cottonwood Canyons sign

There are names of canyons, highway numbers, and the names of ski resorts all over this mess. On one side the highway number is at the top, on the other it's in the middle. There's a snowflake doing something up there (I guess letting people know there might be snow in the canyon).

The label for "Big Cottonwood" is stuck in between both arrows, but maybe a little closer to the up arrow, and the "Little Cottonwood" label isn't really by either one, maybe a little closer to the left arrow, but it's on the right side of the sign. The truth is that you need to turn left to get to Big Cottonwood and go straight to get to Little Cottonwood. If you happen to know which ski resort you want to go to, you could (rightly) assume that turning left would take you to the resorts on that side of the sign, and staying straight would then be the way to get to the others. But if you aren't headed to a ski resort (there are plenty of other places to go in either canyon) you're stuck with the confusing arrows and labels.

Anyway, this sign has been there as long as I can remember, and I finally was able to get a picture of it this summer. After driving past it numerous times and wishing I had a camera with me.

1 comment:

meili said...

whew! I'm so glad you cleared that up!
But I'm still confused..... maybe it's the sign....