CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
Out of Panguitch, one way: 167 km, roughly 2 h 39 in the saddle. It goes by way of Bryce Canyon City and Escalante. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 2,550 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 44 km this is Utah Scenic Byway 12, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Panguitch is a small, tidy Utah town of about fifteen hundred people on the high plateau, and it is the doorway to one of the great motorcycle roads in the American West. Scenic Byway 12 starts nearby, climbs through Red Canyon with its orange spires and tunnels, and then runs on through Bryce Canyon country, Grand Staircase-Escalante and over Boulder Mountain to Capitol Reef. The name Panguitch comes from a Paiute word usually translated as big fish, and the nearby lake does indeed have good trout.
Read the complete Panguitch write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Panguitch is where the day begins. Next is Bryce Canyon City.
Bryce Canyon City is a small cluster of motels, restaurants and shops at the entrance to Bryce Canyon National Park, in the high desert of southern Utah, at an altitude well over two thousand metres. Panguitch, the nearest real town, lies about thirty kilometres to the west. Nothing here is old, as the village grew with the tourists, but the setting is the reason for everything.
Read the complete Bryce Canyon City write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Bryce Canyon City comes up about 41 km into the recorded legs. Next is Escalante.
Escalante is a small town on the edge of nowhere, and it is proud of it. Mormon pioneers settled here in 1875, in a valley at about 1,770 metres, and named it for Silvestre Vélez de Escalante, the Franciscan friar who passed through the region with Spanish explorers in 1776 on a failed attempt to find a route to California. Today it has a few hundred inhabitants, a handful of motels and cafes, and the air of a place that exists mainly to serve those exploring the vast and strange landscape around it.
Read the complete Escalante write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 123 km into the recorded legs you reach Escalante. Next is Boulder.
Boulder, Utah, was the last town in the United States to have its mail delivered by mule, and the arrangement lasted until 1940, since no road reached it. The village sits at about 2,000 metres on the edge of the Aquarius Plateau in south-central Utah, a tiny community of ranches, a few houses and a lodge, with red sandstone cliffs on one side and pine and aspen forest on the other. The nearest big towns are far away, and the village still has a feeling of being at the end of something, which for generations it was.
Read the complete Boulder write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Boulder closes the day.
Panguitch → Bryce Canyon City is 41 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Bryce Canyon City → Escalante is 82 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Escalante → Boulder is 44 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.