Utah's Scenic Highway 12

Day 18   April 23, 2015

The decision today was to recover from the climbs of the past two days by visiting one of the most scenic highways in the US.  This highway is Utah’s Scenic Byway 12.   The section we did was from Red Canyon (about 12 miles west of Bryce Canyon) to Boulder, UT.  This is a distance of about 82 miles.  There was hardly any mile of the trip that wasn’t unusual. 

Some areas were like Bryce with brightly colored spires, other areas were colored layer mountains, one area had an ancient “granary” built into the bluff (Pueblo Indians had built over 1000 years ago) and most impressive to us were the miles of “slickrock”  that make up all the terrain that surround the river.  I can’t imagine how the settlers of the 1870 began to cross these rocks.  Yet they did and built some beautiful communities in some of the river bottoms.  One area, about a mile long, was along a ridge with drop-offs on each side of the road of over 1000 feet. That stretch is called “The Hogsback.”

Hell's Backbone

It’s hard to put into words how vast the canyons were on each side of the road. The little town of Boulder was the last incorporated town in the 48 contiguous states to get regular motorized mail service.  Up until 1940, a mule delivered the mail on a road called “Hells Backbone”.  Note that there are no guard rails along this road and grades up to 14%.   This makes for some pretty good pucker factor as these are approached.   Weather was a major factor as to when the mail was received.