We began our exploration of Utah’s backcountry with low-hanging fruit—the Cottonwood Canyon Road. This unpaved highway connects US 89 on the south finish with Utah’s Scene Byway 12 on the north finish. The highway runs previous Kodachrome State Park the place we camped, which is why it made sense to start out our journey with Cottonwood Canyon Road.
The Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument is an enormous, mountainous space in Southern Utah with US 89 working alongside the border of the nationwide monument and US 12 working alongside the northern border. If you could get from Lake Powel to the Escalante space, for instance, you need to take an enormous 300-mile detour and drive across the whole Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. Cottonwood Canyon Road is a 46-mile shortcut that runs by means of the mountains.
The highway is in comparatively good situation and I don’t imagine {that a} 4×4 automotive is completely crucial. In some areas, although, the highway is fairly steep and tough. And, like with most dust roads in Utah, it turns into impassable in rain.
It is an effective follow to at all times cease by any Bureau of Land Management Office to search out out if the highway is open and inquire about its circumstances. The workplace can present very important info like if a flash flood brought on a landslide within the space.
We drove Cottonwood Canyon Road twice—as soon as from north to south after which from south to north. I didn’t see any benefit of driving a technique over one other.
Related: Gude to Bryce Canion National Park
The northern a part of the highway is extra mountainous and scenic. When you method the final leg of the drive when driving from south to north, there’s a spot on prime of the mountain crossing the place you may cease and luxuriate in an unobstructed view of Bryce Canyon on the left facet and the Kodachrome Basin on the best. It is just breathtaking.
The southern a part of the drive is flatter with nearly no vegetation. All you see are badlands and desert. It may be very totally different, however it’s nonetheless spectacular in its personal method.
Related: Valley of the Gods Dirt Road Drive
It was the second half of September, which remains to be a busy vacationer season in Utah. But I used to be shocked by how few vehicles we encountered alongside our drive—5 to 6 at most for each drives mixed.
Grosvenor Arch
If you do not need time to discover totally different areas alongside Cottonwood Canyon Road, the one cease you have to make is on the Grosvenor Arch. It is situated just one km from the principle highway and is accessible by automotive.
Related: Exploring Monument Valley Scenic Drive
The Grosvenor Arch is essentially the most spectacular rock formation alongside the drive with two pure arches crowning the highest of the tall ridge.
Cottonwood Wash Narrows
If you’ve a few hours to spare, take a straightforward three-mile hike alongside the underside of the slender canyon. Like I mentioned, it’s a straightforward, uncomplicated hike with its solely problem being the doorway on the south finish. The entrance is roofed in enormous rocks from a landslide, however the climbing is simple.
Final Words
All in all, Cottonwood Canyon Road is the simplest solution to begin exploring Utah’s backcountry. It is the right drive for sightseeing and pictures, but it surely additionally serves as a shortcut to Bryce Canyon National Park and House Rock Road in Escalante.
2019 Update – Misadventure on Cottonwood Road
In August 2019, we went on one other driving journey to Utah. We spent two weeks driving a Jeep Wrangler alongside Utah’s backcountry roads to succeed in essentially the most distant and secluded areas of the southwest.
Exploring Cottonwood Canyon Road was not in our plans, however we used it typically as a shortcut to get from the Vermilion Cliffs and Lake Powell to the Escalante space.
One day, after spending three days driving the last word off-road vacation spot to the White Rim Trail in Canyonlands National Park, we have been lastly on our solution to Kodachrome. At the top of the 500km drive, we have been wanting to get to the campground earlier than dusk, so we took the Cottonwood Canyon highway shortcut.
August in Utah is monsoon season. You get sudden, quick, and extreme rainfall nearly day by day. Just earlier than finishing the Cottonwood dust highway part of the drive, we bumped into rain. The clay highway instantly turned impassible and we nearly crashed the Jeep as we drove down the steep hill.
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I utterly misplaced management of the SUV and anticipated an unavoidable crash. But on the final second, the Jeep straightened itself. I assume the traction management kicked in since we slid slowly to the underside of the hill.
Here is how the Jeep appeared. A layer of moist clay coated all of the tires, which left the tires with zero traction. I understood firsthand why clay roads in Utah grow to be impassable when moist. It doesn’t matter what automobile you drive or when you have chains or spikes.
We couldn’t drive in any respect. The solely choice we had was to arrange camp on the facet of the highway and wait till the highway dried up.
Luckily, we had all our tenting gear, meals, and water with us.
The following morning, the highway was nonetheless moist and sticky. Driving was not an choice, so we spent your entire day climbing and accomplished the Cottonwood Wash Narrows hike once more. It wasn’t till the early night when the day’s warmth dried up the clay that we may full the final 10km of dust highway.
Now I do know that clay and water don’t go nicely collectively in terms of driving.