Driving the Burr Trail: What to Expect on This Dramatic Scenic Road in Southern Utah

It took us a while to work up the courage to drive this scenic road through south central Utah. Once we finally did, we realized there was little reason to worry. Karen only covered her eyes for half the drive and never once begged me to turn around.

You want to drive it in good weather and road conditions, dry and above freezing. If you take your time and pay attention to the road, it can be a thrilling and safe experience.

It didn’t start out as a scenic drive

The Burr Trail is a 67-mile route through some of the most geologically fractured terrain in southern Utah. What began as a cattle road is now one of the most memorable drives in the American West.

The trail is named for John Atlantic Burr, a rancher born at sea in 1846 while his family crossed the Atlantic. In the late 1800s, he carved this route to move cattle between summer pastures on Boulder Mountain and a winter range near the Waterpocket Fold. He never intended the road to become a scenic attraction.

A thrilling ride that crosses a national park

From a driving perspective, the highlight of the route is the Waterpocket Fold switchbacks just inside Capitol Reef National Park. This unpaved section drops nearly 800 feet in a single mile, with grades reaching 12 percent.

The Fold itself is a 100-mile wrinkle in the Earth’s crust and remains one of the last large landforms in the lower 48 to be fully mapped. This unusual formation is the primary landscape that Capitol Reef National Park was created to protect.

In 1967, the road was widened so trucks could haul uranium ore out of remote canyons during the Cold War mining boom. Years later, a long legal battle over paving the road created deep divisions among locals. A compromise was eventually reached. Today, the road is paved in the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument and remains dirt inside Capitol Reef.

Listen to us discuss the Burr Trail

In Episode #20 of The Dear Bob and Sue Podcast, we talked about our experience driving the Burr Trail. Below is a short excerpt from that episode.

The Capitol Reef National Park road conditions phone number we mention in the audio clip above is 435-425-3791. As of the writing of this post, this number was operational and provided current road conditions for the Burr Trail and other roads in the park.