12 Sights to See Along Scenic Byway 12

Hoodoos glow like flames in the light of the rising sun at Bryce Canyon National Park,
where the spectacular Thor’s Hammer formation is visible at the bottom of the image just right of center.

Drivers have their choice of routes when traveling between Torrey and Panguitch in south-central Utah. Automobiles can bolt between State Highways 24 and 62, and U.S. Highway 89 and make the trip in less than two hours –  but  the fastest way isn’t always the most enjoyable. An alternate, twisting traverse through the heart of canyon country has captured the imaginations of travelers and earned the state’s only All-American Road designation – one of less than 60 in the nation.

Scenic Byway 12, known as “A Journey Through Time,” traces more than 200 million years of natural and human history. The 124-mile road can be driven in less than three hours, but most travelers will be compelled to take their time exploring its subtleties and miles more of adventurous side-road diversions.

A simple passenger car is the time machine that connects drivers to two national parks, a national monument and three state parks, each with its own claim to archaeological or geological fame, from Devil’s Garden, dotted with delightful stone formations, to a magnificent Grand Staircase to heaven. We drove the byway to discover a dazzling dozen of its most significant sightseeing opportunities that will undoubtedly demand a few more ticks of the clock than your everyday commute.

Traveling west to east, Highway 12 begins southeast of Panguitch at its terminus with U.S. Highway 89. Within only a few miles of this intersection, the road scales the edge of the Paunsaugunt Plateau, and drivers notice the formations of Red Canyon rising mightily above a forest of evergreen trees in the distance. The canyon’s pinnacles are mostly limestone deposited from a lake that existed here 35-50 million years ago. The maroon and pink rock tones appeared when iron within the limestone rusted.

Dramatic human-bored arches are cut into two of the rocks, allowing the highway to pass. In 1925, during a 315-car caravan to celebrate the opening of modern-day Bryce Canyon National Park, Gov. George Dern traveled to a flower-covered gate at the second tunnel, where a banner declared “Welcome to Utah’s Fairyland.” Children dressed as fairies tied flowers and long ribbons to the bumper of the governor’s car. “One little fairy hopped upon the running board and asked Gov. Dern if he believed in fairies. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Then,’ said she, ‘enter into Fairyland,’” a Daughters of Utah Pioneers article recounts. A band perched atop the tunnel played as two children dressed as elves opened the gates and the car passed underneath. The Red Canyon tunnels have served as a magical entry into Red and Bryce canyons ever since.

While Red Canyon’s formations are unique to southern Utah’s geologic show, Bryce Canyon’s hoodoos are the region’s true rock stars. Hoodoos are totem pole-shaped rock pinnacles named for their bewitching looks. Hoodoos seem to glow like fiery flames illuminated by the warm tones of early morning or late afternoon sunlight, especially when viewed from the park’s overlooks like Fairyland Point, Sunrise Point and Inspiration Point above the canyon’s north “Amphitheater,” where the eroded formations are abundant.

The canyon’s high elevation (up to 9,100 feet) means the landscape goes through dramatic temperature fluctuations. Annually, the park has about 170 days where temperatures reach both above and below freezing daily. This freeze-thaw cycle breaks the rocks apart into angular shafts with ambiguous forms. Visitors have nicknamed some hoodoos “Thor’s Hammer,” “Queen Victoria” and “The Alligator” because of their resemblance to the namesake shapes.

East of Bryce Canyon is the Paria Valley and a grouping of historic ranching communities. Late 19th century pioneers drawn to the favorable climate and abundance of fertile lands for crops and grazing created a 10-mile-long canal called Tropic Ditch, which brought life-sustaining water into the valley. A frothy waterfall cascades from the ditch and is reachable by an .8-mile trail in the Mossy Cave section of Bryce Canyon National Park.

The cabin of the park’s namesake – Ebenezer Bryce – still stands in Tropic, while other historic buildings – including a one-room schoolhouse built in 1881 – still stand in the valley’s original settlements of Henrieville and Cannonville. A visitor center administered by the Bureau of Land Management in Cannonville also serves adventurers looking to learn more about the surrounding weird and wonderful rock formations and slot canyons of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument and other parks that lie ahead.

South of Cannonville, Kodachrome State Park preserves 67 rare, monolithic stone spires called sedimentary pipes, which stand amongst a backdrop of dramatic cliffs banded with multiple hues of scarlet, orange and ivory. Sedimentary pipes, many of which are seen along the park’s popular 6-mile Panorama Trail, remain like stone columns standing as the surrounding soil and rock has weathered away with every breath of wind and drop of rain that has passed through the park over millennia.

The 170-foot-tall Chimney Rock is the tallest of the basin’s pipes. The park’s vivid geology prompted a 1948 National Geographic Society expedition to name the area Kodachrome after a popular Kodak color photographic film. A spur on the Cottonwood Canyon and Last Chance Creek Roads leads to Grosvenor Arch, a high span named after the first full-time National Geographic magazine editor Gilbert Hovey Grosvenor. Both roads can be bumpy and are most suitable for high-clearance vehicles.

Northeast of the town of Escalante is Escalante Petrified Forest State Park. The park sports two major recreational features. The first is Wide Hollow Reservoir, a fisher’s paradise stocked with rainbow trout and bluegill, and a favorite with water sports enthusiasts like standup paddlers. The second is a pair of hiking trails that lead into an ancient tree stand. The Petrified Forest Trail is a 1-mile loop winding up the side of a mesa where fossilized wood logs two feet or wider in diameter have been revealed as the mesa’s conglomerate cap has eroded.

The multicolored crystalline logs are believed to be of conifers that were transported by a river before being buried and later fossilized as agate. There is an optional .75-mile loop extending from the trail called Sleeping Rainbows that is much steeper and requires scrambling and rock climbing. Once a site for eager rockhounds, collecting petrified wood in the park is now prohibited to protect the site for the enjoyment of future generations.

A way to sample a sliver of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument’s vast 1.87 million acres diverts south from the highway just east of the town of Escalante. The Bureau of Land Management Road 200, also called Hole-in-the-Rock Road, loosely follows a trail established by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints pioneers who traveled from here to Bluff, 120 miles away.

The modern but washboard unpaved road leads to Devil’s Garden, where fantastical rock hoodoos resembling strange creatures coexist with natural arches like the spindly Metate Arch. The monument is named for a series of topographic benches, plateaus and terraces that rise progressively up in elevation from south to north. Beginning at the highest bench of the Grand Canyon, each of the five “steps” has eroded, revealing a rainbow of rock layers ranging from 65-200 million years old.

From Boulder, Highway 12 hugs narrow curves through canyons seemingly bleached of color except for ribbons of lush olivine cottonwood trees following the area’s rivers and creeks. Motorists can stop to marvel at the highway’s serpentine path at Head of the Rocks Overlook. An unusual octagon shaped structure perched along the precipitous road shelf appears as the route drops under a canyon rim. Local resident Bradshaw Bowman built Kiva Coffeehouse using ponderosa pine logs and other natural materials into a shape resembling a Native American pit house or “kiva” that blends harmoniously into the landscape.

Construction of Bowman’s longtime dream (he started sketching plans in the late 1980s) took five years and was completed in 1998. While the coffeehouse became an oasis for travelers looking to fill up on a tasty pastry or freshly brewed beverage, family members completed a “kottage” with rentable rooms in 2004, four years after Bowman’s death. Farther beyond the coffeehouse, an overlook on the west side of the highway peers over layers of stacked sandstone into a creek bed. Concealed below this very spot is one of the state’s most visited landmarks, Lower Calf Creek Falls, though it is not visible from the parking area. A trailhead accessing the falls, via a sandy 6.7-mile, three-hour out-and-back hike, is north of the Escalante River crossing nearby.

A storm approaches at Kodachrome Basin State Park, home of monolithic spires known as sedimentary pipes.

Though its population is only 236, Boulder is famous as a foodie destination. Restaurants Hells Backbone Grill and Farm, a frequent James Beard Award finalist, and neighboring Burr Trail Grill source local ingredients, so their menus can change frequently but delectably depending on the availability of “farm to table” desserts scratch-made with fruit freshly picked from local organic farms and grass-fed beef provided by local ranchers.

Nearby, Anasazi State Park Museum contains ruins from the Coombs Site, one of the largest Ancestral Puebloan villages found west of the Colorado River. Archaeologists believe the community may have housed as many as 200 people from approximately A.D. 1050-1200. Paved walkways lead to two groups of ruins showing about 30 rooms, a partially restored pit house and a fully replicated six-room dwelling. The museum also houses arrowheads, pottery, tools and other artifacts, many of which are from a collection of more than 10,000 artifacts a local landowner discovered on his property and donated.

The Burr Trail Road is a spur from Highway 12 beginning just south of the namesake restaurant. The road turns to gravel and drops into an assortment of canyons before joining the Notom-Bullfrog Road along the masonry wall-like Waterpocket Fold. The route can be used as a scenic loop toward Capitol Reef National Park and Torrey but is a rougher, longer adventure that may take several hours.

Though the road is graded and suitable for passenger cars, spring and summer rains may make it impassably slick. A quicker option than touring the full “Loop-To-Fold” route is an out-and-back trip to Singing Canyon, a small slot canyon dotted with emerald-colored trees that complement the surrounding narrow maroon walls. The location is aptly named – voices and other sounds reverberate as in an echo-chamber when hiking the canyon.

Beyond the town of Boulder, the temperature drops as the highway ascends from the arid desert environment into lush, forested lands. Drivers are treated to sensational views as the highway enters Dixie National Forest and ascends Boulder Mountain, the edge of the highest forested plateau in North America, the Aquarius Plateau. The road meanders through quaking aspen stands whose leaves seem to sparkle in the breeze.

Pullouts lead to the Larb Hollow, Sheep Creek and Homestead overlooks, showcasing panoramic views that seem to pancake the plateau’s contrasting rolling green forested hills with the alabaster sheen of the sandstone canyons below. Meadows that shelter early summer wildflowers from the sweltering sun sprawl along many of the road’s switchbacks as it climbs. Driving below the speed limit is advised in this 30-mile stretch to not only allow time to observe the plentiful vistas but also to pass through open range, where languorous cows lollygag along the asphalt.

Highway 12 ends at its intersection with State Highway 24 near the town of Torrey. Though its population is only 242, Torrey is hardly a sleepy outpost. Festivals like Apple Days, celebrating the region’s pioneer history of fruit farming held on Independence Day weekend, and its captivating curio shops, restaurants and hotels keep visitors busy during daylight hours.

However, the location comes alive in a very different way after sunset. Torrey’s International Dark-Sky Association certification, made possible by residents’ commitment to lighting the town with downward-facing fixtures and minimizing other light pollution, makes staying up late to watch the stars a memorable experience. The Milky Way is usually clearly visible on summer nights, to the amazement of amateur astronomers.

One of Utah’s “Mighty Five” national parks lies just to the east of the byway’s terminus but is close enough that it is worth visiting on any Highway 12 trip. Capitol Reef is named for its white Navajo sandstone cliffs, resembling the domed construction of capitol buildings and the rocky reef-like barrier of the Waterpocket Fold, which made traversing the rugged area on land an arduous experience for the area’s early explorers.

Contemporary visitors have more accessible choices. Among many hikes that can be daytrips in and of themselves, the park’s notable sights include the orchard-filled Fruita pioneer settlement, walls displaying Native American rock art and the Scenic Drive, which snakes down a narrow and verdant canyon. Some call this region “Panoramaland,” and it’s easy to see why. At Sunset Point, the low-angled last light of day paints a prismatic palette over a sweeping view of the park’s uplifted rock layers and the snowcapped Henry Mountains in the distance. It’s a picture-perfect way to cherish the completion of any time-traveling journey.

A rainbow forms during a passing storm, as seen at sunset from Sunset Point in Capitol Reef National Park.