The Zion NP Adventure - Getting Bogged in the snow and locked out of the car

At the end of my trip in Zion I had a real adventure on the Sunday afternoon while attempting to drive up to the Kolob Reservoir. The road up to the Reservoir goes through some of Zion's highest country, and as I drove up the road the snow kept getting deeper and more frequent. As I got towards the Lava Point trail-head, there was a family stopped by the side of a snow patch, and I waited for them to clear the road and gunned the Ford Explorer I was renting to try and get through the snow, which didn't look that deep to me.

About a third of the way through I got beached on a thicker patch of snow, with none of the wheels touching the road. As I was chocking wood and rocks under the wheels to try and get some traction and reverse out of the snow, I left the car in slow reverse to get the stuff under the wheels further. As I was doing the passenger-side wheel, a gust of wind blew the drivers door shut, and as the wheels where turning slowly in reverse, the anti-car jacking system kicked in, and auto-locked all the doors.

This left me locked out, with a hire-car in slow reverse (and with a cliff a hundred or so meters behind the car), and the snow that the car was beached on slowly melting from the heat of the engine. Thankfully, the family by the side of the road where extremely friendly locals, and we got the jack extension arm from their truck, and unscrewed the radio aerial from the rental car, which after some bending, could make it through the gap between the door of the car and the roof. The door was being prized open with the jack extension arm, and we could eventually get the areal to make contact with auto-window controls and open the window. The local family then towed me out.

I bought a dent-puller when I got to Las Vegas, and spent an hour or so doing some amateur panel beating in a North Las Vegas car park fixing some of the more creative attempts I used to get into the hire car. Thankfully, the car was in an appropriate state when returned to the hire company to avoid any charges .

I'd especially like to thank the family from Hurricane UT that where instrumental out of the snow - much appreciated.