A GORP Content Partner
Adapted from
Scenic Driving Utah
by Joe Bensen
Canyon Country Drives
Tooling around Zion National Park, Bryce Canyon National Park & Escalante National Monument
Utah Highway 12 Scenic Byway
Part 2: Escalante National Monument
We are now deep in the heart of slickrock country, in a part of Garfield County that still looks like a wilderness. Until just twenty years ago, the drive on UT 12 from Escalante to Boulder and the alpine drive across Boulder Mountain was a journey into one of the most remote places in the entire country. Begun as an ambitious Civilian Conservation Corps building project of the late 1930s, this stretch of UT 12 was opened in 1940 and was not entirely paved until 1971 (the stretch north of Boulder to Torrey was finally fully paved in the late 1980s).
General Description: Fifty-seven miles of the most spectacular desert and mountain wilderness in the entire state.
Five miles east of Escalante is the turnoff on the right for the Hole-in-the-Rock Scenic Backway. This very scenic, somewhat rough dirt/gravel road traces the original route of the Mormon pioneers sent from Escalante in 1879 to colonize the remote and unsettled southeast corner of Utah. The party made their way to a crossing of the Colorado River below Hole-in-the-Rock, a steep, narrow defile through which they amazingly blasted, cut, and fabricated a rough road, then lowered their wagons and teams in one of the truly great travel epics in the pioneer West. The story was memorialized in film in the 1949 John Ford classic, Wagon Master.
Special Attractions: Slickrock country of the Escalante River, Calf Creek Falls, Anasazi Indian Village State Park, Boulder Mountain, Capitol Reef and Henry Mountain views.
Location: Southern Utah.
Drive Route Number & Name: UT 12, UT 12 Scenic Byway.
Travel Season: Year-round, though the road north from Boulder can be difficult in winter conditions and has been known to close after a heavy snow.
Camping: State Park campground at Escalante, BLM campground at Calf Creek, four national forest campgrounds on Boulder Mountain, commercial campgrounds at Escalante and Torrey.
Services: Most services in Escalante and Torrey; limited services in Boulder.
Nearby Attractions: Escalante backcountry hikes and drives, Hole-in-the-Rock Scenic Backway, Hell's Backbone Ridge, Burr Trail Scenic Backway.
(For a detailed map, please Click Here. 30k)
The 57-mile trip to Hole-in-the-Rock is rather easier today than it was for those pioneers. The drive can be done in about 2 hours, but the round-trip is best considered an all-day adventure. Though highly recommended (some of the very finest views of Lake Powell are from Hole-in-the-Rock), this is definitely not for RVs, trailers, or low-slung vehicles. The last 5 miles, over slickrock, will be difficult for conventional passenger cars. Inquire first in Escalante about current road conditions.
East of the Hole-in-the-Rock Road, UT 12 trends north through vast expanses of slickrock country. The road skirts south of a huge fold of white sandstone, then drops into the Escalante River Canyon. Ten miles east of Escalante, just on the downside of a low pass, is a spectacular overlook where (as the sign matter-of-factly states) you really can see forever on a clear day. As you look north toward the Aquarius Plateau, you get a good sense of what Wallace Stegner meant when he described this high plateau country as "remarkable mountains that are not mountains at all but greatly elevated rolling plains." The descent from this pass is a terrific driving and scenic experience. While the road is certainly driveable in any vehicle (with good brakes!), it is narrow and quite steep. If you are in a large RV or pulling a trailer, it will tax your driving skills a bit.
At about mile 14 is yet another outstanding viewpoint, Boynton Overlook, on the left. And here the thought may occur: if a person were to stop at every single scenic overlook along UT 12, it might take a week to drive from Red Canyon to Torrey. And it would probably be worth the time.
At the bottom of this long descent are the trailheads for some of the renowned Escalante Canyon backpacking and river trips. When you cross the Escalante River and start the climb up the other side, the first mile or so passes through a very narrow canyon of typical Utah redrock. At just under a mile of ascent from the river is the turnoff for Calf Creek Campground. It is a 3-mile hike from the campground to Lower Calf Creek Falls, a 126-foot cascade of ice-cold water.
The Calf Creek trail is a fine example of the great diversity of attractions to hiking in southern Utah. En route to the falls you will walk through groves of Utah junipers (locally called "cedars") and pass between steep, pastel-colored cliffs of Navajo Sandstone. Interpretive signs along the way point out ancient rock art left by members of the Fremont Culture and a thousand-year-old Indian granary. Though the hike can be hot and somewhat strenuous, its numerous attractions and the shady, cool reward of the falls area make it well worth the effort. Pick up a guide to the numbered interpretive trail at the trailhead.
If UT 12 to this point has been impressive, beyond Calf Creek the road is extraordinary. The road appears to have been blasted through solid rock, climbing to a perfectly straight hogback ridge so narrow that in places you can enjoy views of 1000-foot drops on either side. From the end of this high-level drive you catch your first glimpse of the green Boulder Valley below. This is scenic driving at its very best.
Just at the end of the long hogback ridge and just before the final descent to Boulder is the turnoff on the left for Hell's Backbone. This road is rather rough but makes an extremely dramatic backcountry adventure drive—especially if you are into steep switchbacks and long dropoffs. Amazingly, this was the original route between Boulder and Escalante until UT 12 was completed. Local legend has it that milk and cream, carried by mules from Boulder to Escalante over Hell's Backbone, sometimes turned to butter from the rough trip. (Well, sour cream most likely. . .)
Boulder was first used by cattlemen in the late 1870s, but no permanent settlement evolved until ten years later. This was one of the last communities in the lower forty-eight to be connected by road to the outside world. Boulder was so isolated that mail came by packhorse from Escalante until the mid 1930s. Pickup trucks carried in by mule were reassembled and run on packed-in fuel. The original road from Escalante to Boulder over Hell's Backbone was finally pushed through in 1933.
Today, despite well-traveled UT 12, Boulder still appears absolutely and stunningly remote. The wooded wilderness of the Aquarius Plateau dominates the northern and western horizons, the canyons and roughlands of the Escalante River lie to the south, while the valley is defined in the east by forbidding desert cliffs.
At the north end of Boulder, Anasazi Indian Village State Park, with some excellent ruins and a museum, offers a good glimpse into Utah's very interesting early Indian culture. This was the site of a 1958–1959 University of Utah archaeological dig that uncovered a total of eighty-seven rooms in an eight-hundred-year-old dwelling.
Boulder is where the Burr Trail Scenic Backway begins. The paving of this route through the Waterpocket Fold area of Capitol Reef was a huge controversy and the source of spirited debate between environmentalists who did not wish to see a traffic increase through the desert wilderness and state and local officials who viewed the paving as a solution to critical road travel difficulties in the area.
You can follow this route all the way to Bullfrog Marina on Lake Powell or use it to connect with the Notom Road driv. The Burr Trail remains unpaved in a 17-mile section where it crosses Capitol Reef National Park. Switchbacks on these unpaved sections may cause problems for larger rigs; otherwise, the route is passable for most vehicles. You should drive at least the first 18 miles of Burr Trail, to the end of Long Canyon. This stretch is one of the most interesting and most dramatic, and makes an easy sidetrip from UT 12.
As UT 12 leaves Boulder you enter Dixie National Forest and begin to climb steeply onto the Aquarius Plateau. Within 4 miles of Boulder, this is a true mountain drive (really terrific in autumn). A few miles farther and you come into beautiful groves of aspen. Watch for deer on the road, especially in the evening.
The names Boulder Mountain and Aquarius Plateau both apply to the same landform; both names appear on current maps. Aquarius, the "waterbearer" of the zodiac, seems most appropriate for this vast alpine upland. Source of the Escalante River and major tributaries of the Fremont and Sevier, the Aquarius Plateau spills its waters down upon the desert.
Though by now you have probably realized the impracticality of stopping at every single scenic overlook, do not fail to stop at the truly incredible Homestead Overlook about 11 miles past Boulder and close to the 9,400-foot apex of this drive. It was a view like this that prompted Clarence Dutton, author of perhaps the finest book on early exploration in Utah's canyon country, to remark: "It is a sublime panorama. The heart of the inner Plateau Country is spread out before us in a bird's-eye-view. It is a maze of cliffs and terraces lined off with stratification, of crumbling buttes, red and white domes, rock platforms gashed with profound canyons, burning plains barren even of sage—all glowing with bright color and flooded with blazing sunlight. Everything visible tells of ruin and decay. It is the extreme of desolation, the blankest solitude, a superlative desert."
Dutton recorded these sentiments in approximately this same location, high up on the southeastern flank of the Aquarius Plateau. The view still lives up to his description.
The road stays high for several miles, with especially spectacular views off to the right across the Waterpocket Fold and Capitol Reef and toward the Henry Mountains. At about mile 8.5 past Homestead is another not-to-be-missed overlook, called Larb Hollow, with even better views of the Henrys. Just past this overlook begins a serious (steep) 5-mile descent. You leave Dixie National Forest just north of Grover in some of the most beautiful high ranch country you will ever see, covered with sage and juniper. Grover is not an actual town, but a handful of ranches nestled in the valley.
UT 12 ends at the intersection with Utah Highway 24 just east of Torrey. Here you have the option of turning left/west to Loa and the quickest return to Interstate 15. If you wish to continue on to points east, turn right. In either case, you really ought to take a few minutes to visit the small residential community of Teasdale (about 4 miles west of Torrey and 1.5 miles south of UT 24 at a well-marked intersection). This quiet little town with its lovely LDS church is a perfect example of why the Mormon pioneers, kicked out of town after town across America and just looking for some unwanted place to call their own, didn't get such a bad deal after all. Wouldn't you rather live in Teasdale?
Torrey is a pretty little town with tree-lined UT 24 as its main street. Just west of the modern LDS church, note on the right the small, original church building, usually open for visitors. Across the street there is a cute little community picnic area with a bandstand. You will find most basic services here.
- Move on to:
Zion National Park Scenic Drive
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