Utah's Scenic Highway 12: An Audio Driving Tour

3 hours – 3 h 30 min Free cancellation Private tour

Utah's Scenic Highway 12: An Audio Driving Tour, photo 2 — Photos: the activity supplier, via Viator

About this activity

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 learn to identify ancient sand dunes, seafloor deposits, and river systems just by looking at the rock. 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.

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At a glance

Duration: 3 hours – 3 h 30 min
Confirmation: Instant confirmation
Ticket: Mobile or paper ticket accepted
Group: Your group only
People per booking: 1–15
Audio guide: English
Written guide: English
Operated by: VoiceMap Audio Tours

What is included

Included

Included: Lifetime access to this tour in English before your booking date and after it
Included: Offline access to audio, maps, and geodata
Included: Flexibility to explore at your own pace with a self-guided GPS tour
Included: App for Android and iOS
Included: Directions to the starting point so that when you’re in the right place, the tour will start

Not included

Not included: Smartphone and headphones
Not included: Transportation
Not included: Food and drink
Not included: Personal expenses for admission fees not included during the tour

Itinerary

Red Canyon

Passing by

Drive into Red Canyon and find yourself immediately surrounded by dense forests of crimson hoodoos, their spires rising on both sides of the road in a dramatic natural gateway to the Colorado Plateau. Marvel at how these towering pillars of Claron Formation limestone were carved by the same geological forces at work in Bryce Canyon just a few miles to the east, offering a spectacular preview of the deep time journey ahead.
Bryce Canyon National Park

Passing by

Pass the boundary of Bryce Canyon National Park and discover how a collapsed supervolcano created the precise conditions needed to produce thousands of hoodoos — a geological coincidence found nowhere else on Earth at this scale. Look out across the amphitheatres carved into the Paunsaugunt Plateau's edge and learn to read the alternating bands of red, orange, and white rock as chapters in a story spanning tens of millions of years.
Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument

Passing by

Descend into the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument and experience one of the most extraordinary geological transitions on the continent, dropping through successive rock layers that carry you from the age of mammals down into the age of dinosaurs. Look out across the vast, colour-banded landscape and appreciate how this remote and largely roadless monument preserves one of the most complete stratigraphic records anywhere in North America.
Kodachrome Basin State Park

Passing by

Drive past the turnoff for Kodachrome Basin State Park and learn how the sediment pipes rising from its floor — unlike anything else in Utah — were formed by ancient springs that hardened underground before the surrounding rock eroded away. Enjoy the vivid contrast of crimson spires and cream-coloured sand pipes against the open sky, a landscape so striking that the National Geographic Society named it after Kodak's famous colour film.
Dixie National Forest

Passing by

Cross into the Dixie National Forest and feel the landscape shift dramatically as the elevation rises and ponderosa pines replace the red rock desert below. Drive through this high-country forest and learn how Boulder Mountain's volcanic cap protected the ancient rock beneath it from erosion, inverting the landscape over millions of years to turn what was once a valley floor into the highest plateau on the Colorado Plateau.
Escalante Petrified Forest State Park

Passing by

Pass Escalante Petrified Forest State Park and discover how the ancient logs scattered across its slopes were buried by river sediments roughly 135 million years ago, their wood cells slowly replaced by silica until they became stone. Stop to appreciate how these fossilised trees preserve not just the remains of individual organisms, but an entire Jurassic floodplain ecosystem frozen in geological time.
Anasazi State Park Museum

Passing by

Stop at Anasazi State Park Museum in Boulder and discover how one of the largest known Ancestral Puebloan village sites west of the Colorado River was uncovered here, its inhabitants sustained by the same landscapes you have been driving through all day. Explore how the people who lived here between roughly 1050 and 1200 CE read this terrain not as geology but as home, farming the benches above the Escalante River before mysteriously departing within a single generation.
Torrey

Passing by

Arrive at Torrey at the junction of Highway 12 and Highway 24 and take in your position on the western edge of Capitol Reef National Park, where the Waterpocket Fold — a nearly hundred-mile wrinkle in the Earth's crust — pushes the oldest dinosaur-bearing rocks in the region to the surface. Reflect on the 250 million years of Earth history you have just driven through, from volcanic hoodoo forests to ancient seafloors to glacial mountain plateaus, all compressed into a single extraordinary road.

Meeting point and pickup

Everyone meets at the meeting point.

Meeting point

This tour starts at Highway 89 Junction. Before arrival, please install the mobile app and use the code provided on your confirmation ticket. Detailed starting point instructions are available after downloading.

End point

Tour ends at Highway 24 Jct

Using your ticket

VOICEMAP CODE

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Please check your email at the address you provided when you made this booking. You've been sent an eight character code you'll need to redeem your tour.

DOWNLOAD INSTRUCTIONS

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Once you've received your code, please follow these steps:

Install the VoiceMap Audio Tours mobile app

Create an account

Select Tour Codes from the menu, then select Enter Codes

Enter your code then select Download Now

PLEASE NOTE

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You can download the tour at any time, before or after your booking date. It’s best to download the tour before you set off for the starting point.

This tour follows a set route and includes turn-by-turn directions. It works best if you start it in the right place and follow the directions from one location to the next.

When the download completes, you’ll see a screen with a photo of the starting point and directions to it. The red start button will become active when you are at the starting point.

Remember to bring your own headphones, unless you have booked a driving tour.

SUPPORT

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For technical support and other queries, please email [email protected]