Hell's Backbone

On the Sunday of Memorial weekend, we took a site-seeing road trip along the Hell's Backbone Road. Hell's Backbone is a 38 mile dirt road connecting Escalante and Bolder, UT. This road was built by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) in the 1930's. Before this road was built, there was not an automobile road between these two cities; there were only wagon trails! Hell's Backbone climbs more than 9,000 feet in elevation and is very narrow and winding. On either side of the road is at least a 1,500 foot drop!

This is at one look off point on the Backbone. We thought this dead tree looked pretty cool. Behind us you can see one side of the large canyon. Russel and my brother, Clint, threw a log off the edge and it seemed to roll and fall forever.

Here we are on the Hell's Backbone bridge. The bridge is 109 feet long and 14 feet wide connecting two pieces of the mountains. Here there is a 1,500 foot drop on either side. The view from the bridge was spectacular but it was also kind of nerve racking as you looked over the edge. I took this picture from Wikipedia and it shows exactly what the bridge looks like and how high up it is. Awesome!

The pictures above do not do justice for the great scenery we saw while we were on top of Hell's Backbone. We could see forever in all directions while we were on top and it was amazing!

After coming off of Hell's Backbone, we drove into Boulder and stopped at the Anasazi Indian State Park. We walked through the museum and looked at all of the Indian ruins. They were pretty cool and I actually learned quite a bit about the Anasazi and other Indians in Utah.

We even got to walk through an actual Indian home. Indians must not have been very tall because I hit my head as I was walking in the door and the roof was pretty low. Russell had to lean over while he was inside and he is only around 5'10''. I really liked the pit houses (homes built underground). The Indians would built their homes underground because it was more insulated. They stayed cool in the summer and harm in the winter. They ruins were awesome.

On our way back to Escalante we took Utah Scenic Byway 12. This road was also built by the CCC's in the 1930's. The CCC's called it the Million Dollar Road because the rough terrain required a lot of work and money to build the road. This road also connects Bolder and Escalante. Scenic Byway 12 also goes through some awesome landscape. At one point it feels like you are on top of the world because on either side of the road is an steep drop off. Then you travel down the hill to the beautiful river valley of Calf Creek. I wish we would have had more time because then we would have hiked up to the Calf Creek falls. I have heard that they are amazing. I really want to go back some time and camp at Calf Creek.

This road trip was really fun because of all of the great sites we were able to see.