The All-American Scenic Byway

Hey Guys!! While we were staying in the Torrey, UT area we stayed right at the beginning of Highway 12…also known as The All-American Road Scenic Byway. With a name like that, we couldn’t help but explore at least some of it! The entire scenic byway is 124 miles with sooo many stops, hikes, and scenic backway roads that lead off to even more adventures.

All along highway 12 are scenic pulloffs to some absolutely stunning panoramic vistas.

You’ll also find three State Parks spaced out along highway 12. We stopped at one of them during our day of exploring. Anasazi State Park Museum sits at the site of an Ancestral Puebloan community that was used between 1050 to 1200 AD. Most of the site has been left unexcavated, but they have uncovered ninety-seven rooms along with several pit structures. There is a small replica (that you can explore) of what some of the structures would have looked like when the Ancestral Puebloan people were there. We spent a couple of hours checking this small State Park out.

One of the best…maybe the best… section of The All-American Road Scenic Byway is what they refer to as The Hogsback. This is the part of the highway that follows the thin razorback ridge of a mesa with steep drop offs on each side of the highway. Luckily, they put in a nice wide pulloff right at the top where you can get out of your vehicle and ogle the breathtaking views. I think I must have taken twenty pictures of just this pulloff alone.

When I did my research on places to stop and things to see on highway 12, one place kept coming up. Kiva Koffeehouse. Everyone said to stop for a snack and soak in the view…Guys, they weren’t lying. The view here was spectacular and the food was super fresh and tasty! We sat outside while we ate and the picture on the left was our lunch view. Then we drove around the corner and ran into the view in the right picture. And for probably the 100th time that day we all stood there saying wow!

Ancestral Puebloans used this area long before highway 12 was built. If you look closely, you can see the upper valley granaries still stored. A granary is where food was stored to keep it safe. They would wall up the area to keep animals and other people from getting to their storage. If you don’t know where to look, I’ve zoomed in and put an arrow pointing to the granary. It really blends in with the cliff side.

We made it all the way to Powell Point before we turned around. At Powell Point you can see the very topmost layer of the Colorado Plateau’s Grand Staircase. You can also see this same layer at Bryce Canyon NP.

On a different day we went back to highway 12 to tackle the scenic backway known as Hells Backbone. This is a thirty-eight mile dirt road built by the CCC to connect two mountain towns. So many of the reviews I read about this road kept saying how dangerous it is and under the wrong circumstances, I can see how it would be dangerous. You’d definitely want dry weather and no snow or ice on the road, but Hells Backbone is a great short scenic drive. Just watch out for the cows along the road (upper right picture).

We still had some light left, so we headed over to the Burr Trail Scenic Backway. Yup…another scenic trail! Ha! Burr Trail started out as a cattle trail to get cattle from their summer grazing pastures to their winter ones. We drove to the end of the paved part and found the view above. Not a bad view of the Circle Cliffs with the Henry Mountains in the background.

On the way back out of the Burr Trail, we stopped at a pulloff that led to a deep cleft in the side of the canyon wall. When we walked up to the cleft, there was a family there with two girls who were singing songs from The Sound of Music and Guys…the acoustics in this cleft were amazing! The girls sounded wonderful. While we were chatting with the family, a small owl flew out of a nearby tree, floated right over our heads, and landed in a little alcove in the canyon wall. It took us all by surprise! It was a really cool experience.

Hells Backbone Road and Anasazi State Park Museum are actually part of a bigger National Monument. Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument is divided into three different units and spans across close to one million acres. Besides the fact that this is one huge National Monument, the area within it is the last place in the US to have been mapped. We explored some of this park from Torrey and some from our next stop, Panguitch…so stay tuned for more on this amazing National Monument!

I have one more post for our time in Torrey! We’re going to need a vacation once we finish with Utah so we can get some rest… There’s so much to see and do here.

See y’all down the road!

#NationalParkTour