Utah’s wildest 67-mile road crosses three federal lands with zero gas stations

It’s a cattle rancher’s old trail

The Burr Trail Scenic Backway runs 67 miles from the tiny town of Boulder to Bullfrog Marina on Lake Powell, and most of it looks like no one has touched it since the last ice age.

You cross Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Capitol Reef National Park, and Glen Canyon National Recreation Area in a single drive. The first 30 miles are paved.

After that, you’re on dirt and gravel. There are no fees to drive it, and the whole thing takes about three hours if you don’t stop. You will stop.

The road’s namesake was born at sea

John Atlantic Burr got his name because his parents welcomed him aboard a ship on the Atlantic Ocean in 1846. His family came to Utah as early Mormon pioneers and founded the town of Burrville in 1876.

Burr built the original trail to push cattle between summer and winter grazing ranges across the Waterpocket Fold. Back then, only the steep switchback section carried his name.

Now the whole 67-mile road from Boulder to Bullfrog goes by it.

Pale sandstone dunes greet you outside Boulder

Boulder sits on Utah Scenic Byway 12, about 32 miles north of Escalante, and that’s where the drive begins. Within minutes, you cross into Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, and the development vanishes.

Pale Navajo sandstone dunes roll across the landscape with nothing built on them. About seven miles in, you reach Deer Creek, a year-round stream that marks the first major drainage crossing.

From here, the road tightens, and the walls start to climb.

Red cliffs tower over seven miles of Long Canyon

Long Canyon swallows the road for about seven miles.

Sheer Wingate sandstone cliffs rise hundreds of feet on both sides, and the red walls close in tight enough that the sky narrows above you.

Dark streaks of desert varnish run down the rock face, a thin mineral coating left behind by living microbes over thousands of years.

Look up near the rim, and you’ll see a band of lighter golden sandstone capping the red walls. That layer has a name: the Diadem.

Clap your hands inside Singing Canyon

About 11 miles from Boulder, an unmarked pullout leads to Singing Canyon, a short slot canyon branching off Long Canyon. The walls climb roughly 80 feet, and only thin slivers of blue sky show overhead.

Make any sound in here, and the rock throws it back at you, amplified and layered. The canyon’s natural acoustics are the draw.

The walk is flat, takes about 15 minutes round trip, and works for all ages and ability levels. No fees, open year-round.

Pink and purple hills spread below the Circle Cliffs

At the upper end of Long Canyon, the road climbs to a saddle at the rim of the Circle Cliffs.

This curving ridge of Wingate sandstone arcs eastward toward Capitol Reef, and the viewpoint looks out over bands of the Chinle Formation at its base.

The Chinle hills come in shades of pink, purple, and deep red, layered like paint swatches across the desert floor. Beyond them, wooded plains stretch toward the peaks of Capitol Reef and the distant Henry Mountains.

Pavement ends at the Capitol Reef boundary

About 30 miles from Boulder, the asphalt gives out at the Capitol Reef National Park boundary. If you prefer paved roads, this is your turnaround point, and it’s still a solid two-hour round trip from Boulder.

But if you keep going, the landscape opens into wide desert views with jagged sandstone reefs cutting across the horizon. All five peaks of the Henry Mountains come into view in the far distance.

The dirt road ahead is where the Burr Trail earns its reputation.

The Waterpocket Fold is a 100-mile wrinkle in the earth

Capitol Reef’s defining feature is the Waterpocket Fold, a nearly 100-mile-long crease in the Earth’s crust. Geologists call it a monocline, a steep fold where the west side sits about 7,000 feet higher than the east.

The same mountain-building event that created the Rockies pushed this fold up between 50 and 70 million years ago. Erosion did the rest, carving cliffs, canyons, domes, and natural arches from the tilted rock.

Early settlers named it for the water-holding basins in the sandstone.

The switchbacks climb 800 feet in half a mile

The Burr Trail switchbacks are the stretch that gives the road its edge.

A steep series of hairpin turns climbs about 800 feet in roughly half a mile, winding up through a notch where the Navajo sandstone has completely worn away.

The road is narrow and unpaved, so cars heading uphill get the right of way. From the top, the view east across Strike Valley is one of the finest in southern Utah.

Leave the RV behind, though. Trailers and large vehicles should not attempt this section.

Few visitors ever reach Strike Valley Overlook

A spur road near the switchbacks leads to the Strike Valley Overlook trailhead.

The short hike takes you to the crest of the Waterpocket Fold, where layered, multicolored rock stretches north and south as far as you can see.

The Henry Mountains and their snow-dusted peaks fill the eastern horizon. Lower Muley Twist Canyon, a deep slot canyon, also starts from a trailhead near the switchbacks.

This remote section of Capitol Reef draws only a fraction of the visitors who crowd the main park area near Fruita.

One of America’s last-mapped mountain ranges has wild bison

The Henry Mountains were one of the last ranges in the lower 48 to be named, explored, and mapped. John Wesley Powell spotted them during his 1869 Colorado River expedition and called them the “Unknown Mountains.”

The range got its formal name in 1872, honoring Joseph Henry, the first Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. Mount Ellen, the tallest peak, reaches 11,522 feet.

A free-roaming herd of genetically pure bison, one of only a few such herds in the country, lives in the range.

No cell service, no gas, and no safety net

Your phone will not work out here. No gas stations, stores, or services of any kind exist between Boulder and Bullfrog, so fill your tank, pack water, bring food, and carry a first aid kit.

Wet weather can turn the dirt sections into mud that stops even four-wheel-drive vehicles cold. Spring and fall bring the mildest temperatures for hiking and exploring.

The road stays open year-round, but the desert does not forgive poor planning. Come prepared, and the 67 miles will reward every bit of effort.

Hit the Burr Trail Scenic Backway in Boulder, Utah

You can pick up the Burr Trail right in Boulder, where it branches east off Utah Scenic Byway 12. Boulder sits about 32 miles north of Escalante and roughly 40 miles south of Torrey on Highway 12.

While you’re in town, the Anasazi State Park Museum holds the ruins of an Ancestral Puebloan village occupied from about A.D. 1050 to 1200, one of the largest communities of its kind west of the Colorado River.

Check road conditions through the Escalante Interagency Visitor Center before you head out.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

Read more from this brand:

• The desert mountain that fooled New York bankers is now Utah’s best photo spot
• Declassified: how the AEC bulldozed Utah’s Capitol Reef for a radioactive jackpot
• Where to find Utah’s “Garden of Eden” in Capitol Reef