Lonesome Highway — Garfield Peak Road to Red Canyon via Bryce Canyon Backdoor

While the tourist crush queues up on UT-12 for the Bryce Canyon rim walk, Forest Road 100 peels off the Paunsaugunt Plateau’s east rim and descends through stands of ponderosa pine into Red Canyon — a landscape of pink limestone fins and hoodoos that rivals anything in the national park proper, without a single entrance fee or shuttle bus in sight. The road runs roughly from the Bryce Canyon Airport area south and west, skirting the park boundary through Dixie National Forest before dropping toward Coyote Hollow and linking with UT-12 near the Red Canyon tunnel. Along the way you pass through open meadows at around 8,000 feet before the canyon walls close in and the rock turns that signature Claron limestone crimson.

This is a high-clearance dirt road, not a technical crawler — most of it is manageable in a capable AWD vehicle in dry summer conditions, but the soft shoulders and occasional rocky drainage crossings reward genuine ground clearance. Best season is May through October; the Paunsaugunt plateau holds snow late and gets it back early. No permit required. Dixie National Forest dispersed camping is available along the upper plateau sections. Cell service is spotty at best. Fuel in Panguitch, about 15 miles north. The solitude compared to the adjacent national park is almost absurd — you’ll share this road with deer, not minivans.