Utah's Scenic Highway 12: A Backseat Geology Driving Tour

Utah's scenic Highway 12 cuts through some of the most geologically dramatic landscapes in North America. On this self-guided driving tour, you'll journey through 250 million years of Earth's history, learning how volcanoes, ancient seas, and powerful faults sculpted the red rock country between Bryce Canyon and Capitol Reef.

The tour starts at the Red Canyon Café parking lot near the Highway 89 junction. You'll drive through Red Canyon's hoodoo forests, cross the active Sevier Fault - one of the longest fault lines in the world - and traverse the Paunsaugunt Plateau. Along the way, you'll discover how a collapsed supervolcano created the conditions for Bryce Canyon's distinctive spires, why certain rock layers are bleached white while others glow red, and what the triangular fractures in hoodoos reveal about underground stress and strength.

As you continue east, you'll drop through the colorful Grand Staircase, descending from the age of mammals into the age of dinosaurs. You'll learn to identify ancient sand dunes, seafloor deposits, and river systems just by looking at the rock. The route crosses the dramatic Escalante Monocline, winds along the narrow Hogsback ridge, and climbs Boulder Mountain - where glacial lakes and volcanic flows tell their own stories. The tour ends at the junction with Highway 24 in Torrey, on the edge of Capitol Reef National Park, where the oldest dinosaur - bearing rocks in the region await exploration.

On this detailed 200-minute geology tour, you'll have a chance to:

• Stand on the active Sevier Fault itself and see how nearby volcanic rocks capture its steady, ongoing motion
• Learn why the Claron Formation creates thousands of hoodoos while most limestones don't form any
• Discover fossils from the Western Interior Seaway, a warm ocean that once flooded North America from Las Vegas to Chicago
• Explore where hadrosaurs, ceratopsians, and even Tyrannosaurus rex roamed the Cretaceous shoreline
• See the Navajo Sandstone's sculpted slickrock, formed by wind-blown sand dunes 200 million years ago
• Witness how Boulder Mountain transformed from the lowest valley to the highest peak through volcanic protection

This tour transforms a scenic drive into a journey through deep time, revealing the forces that built and continue to shape the Colorado Plateau. While you never need to get out of your vehicle, there are also plenty of optional stops for you to get closer to the scenery while stretching your legs.