Grand Staircase Escalante Today, we’re headed down Utah 12, a scenic byway from Bryce Canyon to Capital Reef National Park. Our first stop was Kodachrome State Park. I was expecting much more colors than the mostly reds and whites we saw. The highlights of the park are the sandstone spires that dot the park. We took a short loop hike to see a little of the scenery. Some of the hike was in a wash, which were pretty muddy after all the rain this last week. Leaving the park, we headed down toward Grand Stair Case-Escalante National Monument. Highway 12 is one of only 2 roads that cover some of the corners of the monument. This part of Utah was the last part of the continental US to be explored, by John Wesley Powell in the early 1870s. The most spectacular part was the road from Escalante to Boulder, Utah. This section is called the million dollar highway, it was completed in the late 1930s. Boulder was the last town in the U.S. to get their mail by mule train – a 3 day trek from Escalante before this road was put in. The road north from Boulder to Torrey, Utah wasn’t paved until 1965. So this portion was only open 6 months a year. The scenery fit the remoteness of this area. Lots of impassable rock formations. It took most of the day for us to cover this 150 miles, but we made many stops on the numerous viewpoints. 
Climb up Boulder Mountain to Torrey
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