About This Trip
Utah's Highway 12 connects Bryce Canyon National Park to the outskirts of Capitol Reef National Park across 124 miles of canyon country that has been called one of the most scenic drives in the world. The route crosses three plateaus, drops into slot canyons, traverses a narrow sandstone ridge above 8,000 feet with nothing but air on both sides, and passes through two national parks and one national monument without ever touching an interstate highway.
The drive begins at Bryce Canyon City, where the turn off Utah-63 leads into Bryce Canyon National Park proper — but the byway itself starts immediately delivering. The high plateaus of the Paunsaugunt give way quickly to the Grand Staircase as the road descends toward Escalante. Red rock formations begin appearing within the first few miles, and by the time the byway reaches the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument boundary, the landscape has shifted entirely into desert canyon country.
The town of Escalante sits at the intersection of several spectacular day-hike corridors. Slot canyon hikes — including the famous Coyote Gulch and Zebra Canyon — originate from trailheads within a few miles of town. The Escalante Natural Bridge, reachable on a flat 2-mile round-trip, is one of the most accessible dramatic arches in a region full of dramatic arches.
Boulder, the next settlement, is tiny but improbably sophisticated — the Hell's Backbone Grill there has been rated among the best restaurants in the country despite being in a town of fewer than 250 people at 6,700 feet. The Anasazi State Park Museum in Boulder preserves one of the largest ancient village sites in the western United States.
Between Boulder and Torrey, the road climbs to the top of the Aquarius Plateau — the highest timbered plateau in North America at over 9,000 feet — and then traverses a section called the Hogback, where the road runs along a narrow sandstone ridge with 800-foot drop-offs on both sides. This section is fully paved and not technically difficult, but the sensation of driving on a knife-edge ridge is not something you forget.
Best time to drive: April through June and September through November. Summer temperatures in the canyon bottoms can exceed 100°F. Flash flood risk is real in the slot canyon areas during monsoon season (July–August); check the weather before hiking. The higher sections of the Aquarius Plateau may receive snow in October and November.
Stops
Bryce Canyon City, UT — Bryce Canyon National Park
The byway begins adjacent to Bryce Canyon National Park — plan a morning at Bryce before the drive. Sunrise Point and Inspiration Point deliver the park's famous amphitheater of orange hoodoos in the best light. Bryce Canyon City has reliable fuel and lodging; services become sparse once the byway begins.
Escalante, UT — Grand Staircase Gateway
A small town in a big landscape — the gateway to Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, one of the largest and most remote national monuments in the lower 48 states. The Interagency Visitor Center here has maps and current conditions for slot canyon hikes. Calf Creek Recreation Area, 15 miles east, has a 6-mile round-trip hike to a 126-foot waterfall that is one of the best day hikes in southern Utah.
Boulder, UT — Hell's Backbone Grill
A tiny town at 6,700 feet that would be unremarkable except for two things: the Hell's Backbone Grill (reservations strongly recommended, open seasonally), and the Anasazi State Park Museum, which preserves a large 1,000-year-old ancestral Puebloan village with an excellent interpretive museum. From Boulder, the byway begins its dramatic climb to the Aquarius Plateau.
The Hogback — Narrow Ridge Section
Between Boulder and Grover, the byway traverses a narrow sandstone ridge called the Hogback with sheer drop-offs on both sides. The road is fully paved and wide enough for two cars, but the exposure is real and the views in every direction — red rock canyons descending thousands of feet into the distance — are unlike anything else on a paved road in the American West.
Torrey, UT — Capitol Reef National Park
The byway ends at Torrey, the gateway community for Capitol Reef National Park a few miles east. Capitol Reef is the least-visited of Utah's five national parks and arguably the most underrated — its 100-mile Waterpocket Fold is a geological feature with no parallel in North America. The historic Fruita orchards inside the park are free to pick in season.