Originally posted by Marc Langille This should help explain it better Steve: the Burr Trail from Boulder, UT along HWY 12 to the Capitol Reef Park boundary is paved. It's another 19.8 miles before you reach the park boundary- then the pavement ends...
Boulder, UT --> Long Canyon, UT --> Capitol Reef Park boundary:
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On the second workshop weekend, I did the full loop down the Burr Trail road switchback and headed north on Notom-Bullfrog road through Capitol Reef National Park. That is some switchback!!!
I was in 1st gear all the way down driving a Jeep... took a few photos of it too...
Cheers,
Marc
Thanks for the clarification Marc. Your description matches those I just read on the Web. My reaction was based on a sign that was posted at the junction in Boulder when I was through the area a few years back. The sign promised terrible consequences for any passenger car that would dare enter the trail. We were driving a rented Chrysler 300 and decided that the warning applied to us. If I had known that a spectacular slot canyon was just a few miles away on easy pavement, I probably would have taken the side trip.
Probably a good thing we didn't though. Our reservations for that night were at Gouldings's in Monument Valley and we were going via Torrey, Hanksville, and Mexican Hat. It was a long, long, long way. The funny thing was that later that day we talked to a couple who had braved the Burr Trail all the way to Bullfrog only to find that the ferry was not running. They had to detour on the 276 back to Highway 95 and go the long way around.
Steve
(Memo to self...got to go back to Boulder and see this stuff for myself...)