Though we most recently made our journey in late spring, whether you drive this stretch of scenic byway in spring, summer, fall or winter the red rock around you imparts a sense of endless summer, of warm, rich earth, of tenacity for life.  

As we approached Bryce (though we didn’t turn down toward the park) the red rock formations, sculpted by millennia of erosion, began to step out from the cliffs and plateaus.  These works of art mingle with juniper and pinion pine, greenbelts sidling up to rivers, all lit by the vibrancy of the sun reflecting off sandstone, from the palest white to the deepest russet — a sunset captured in stone.
    
The road twists, swaying with the land, cutting through tunnels blasted in sandstone cliffs through Dixie National Forest, poising on the precipice of a plateau before cascading in broad sweeps down into a deeply green valley, as it does near Box-Death Hollow Wilderness Area.  The very names of the monuments we passed, especially the lesser-known locales, evoked a sense of wonder and mystery for this surreal land: Petrified Forest, Death Hollow, Hole in the Rock, Mossy Cave. The names resonate in the broad spaces of this land, echoing in your mind and begging to be explored, insisting that someday you’ll stop there, too.
    
We pulled off at every overlook, to view canyons dropping away into the distance, spires of sandstone marching in ranks, slick-rock flows rolling away to the base of distant mountains, the periphery hazy under the glare of the sun.  Our kids loved the stops.  Sure, they loved stretching their legs, but they were also excited by the strangeness of the land, this glimpse at what felt like the hidden skeletal structure of the world.
    
My favorite part of the entire road is the Hog's Back.  For a quarter mile the road balances seemingly precariously on the very ridge of the slick rock, cliffs tumbling downward on both sides. After this privileged view of the rest of the landscape, falling and stretching away all around us, we dropped down into those same canyons for a time, before finding ourselves in Boulder, then climbing through the Boulder Mountains, looking back over where we’d come, and finally arriving in Torrey with a sigh, just west of Capital Reef National Park, and another adventure waiting around that bend.

IF YOU GO:
Take Interstate 15 south to Highway 20, which is just south of Beaver. This leads to Highway 89. Turn south, pass through Panguitch, staying on Highway 89 to the junction with Highway 12.

Highway 12 circles around through Tropic, Cannonville, Escalante, Boulder and finally to Torrey, near Capitol Reef National Park.

We did some shopping along the way. Click here to read more. We took our kids on this three-hour drive, click here to read more.