Highway 89 Road Trip

A Highway 89 Utah road trip through the Mormon Pioneer National Heritage Area: 1-day, 3-day, and 7-day auto tour ideas that link the travel planner, districts, parks, and the Capitol Reef week.

This is a Highway 89 Utah road trip: an auto tour through the Mormon Pioneer National Heritage Area. The corridor follows U.S. Highway 89, All-American Road State Route 12, and Scenic Byway State Route 24 across six historic counties and 400 miles of scenic byways.

It is a living landscape of towns, districts, museums, and parks. It is not the Mormon Pioneer National Historic Trail from Iowa to the Salt Lake Valley. For the map and printed guide, use the Travel Planner. For more sample routes, see Tours & Itineraries.

A 1-day Highway 89 trip

You can time a visit as a day trip. Stay on Utah Heritage Highway 89 in Little Denmark, the Sanpete Valley district. Twelve towns sit between the Sanpitch Mountains and the Wasatch Plateau.

Start in Mount Pleasant, a Preserve America and National Main Street community on Highway 89. Stop at the old National Guard Armory at the northeast corner of State Street and Main Street, where murals honor Sanpete County veterans. Heritage Self-Driving Tour #2 also names Wasatch Academy among the Mount Pleasant stops.

North of Ephraim, a turn east from Highway 89 reaches Spring City. The entire city is on the National Register of Historic Places as a well-preserved Mormon settlement. Artisans keep studios and galleries there.

Ephraim is the largest city in the district. It is home to the Scandinavian Festival and Snow College. Manti, the Sanpete County seat, sits five miles south of Ephraim on Highway 89. Temple Hill is the landmark the district page ties to the Mormon Miracle Pageant, with eight free performances and a combined audience of 80,000. Performers there tell the beginnings of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

That is one Highway 89 day: Main Streets, a National Register town, and Temple Hill, without leaving Little Denmark. Download the planner before you go, and add museums from the guide side if you want a slower afternoon.

Another one-district day is Sevier Valley. Richfield is the largest city there, on Interstate 70 and Highway 89. Fremont Indian State Park is 21 miles southwest of Richfield on Interstate 70, with a museum, rock art, and interpretive trails in Clear Creek Canyon.

A 3-day Highway 89 road trip

Three days is enough to drive north to south through more than one district and still choose a park. The spine is the same corridor as Heritage Self-Driving Tour #2. That published route is four days. Use the first three days here, and save Lake Powell and Kanab for a later trip, or open the full tour page if you can stay longer.

Day 1: Little Denmark on Highway 89

Begin in Sanpete County, first settled in 1849. Follow the 1-day stops above: Mount Pleasant, Spring City, Ephraim, and Manti. Heritage Self-Driving Tour #2 also lists Fountain Green, Sterling, and historic Main Streets where pioneer architecture still shapes the towns. More corridor context is on About.

End the day toward Sevier Valley. Richfield is the usual overnight on that published tour.

Day 2: Sevier Valley and Headwaters

Stay with Highway 89 through Sevier Valley. The district page names Redmond, Salina, Aurora, Sigurd, Richfield, Glenwood, Elsinore, Monroe, and Joseph, plus Fish Lake as a trout fishery with a historic lodge. Richfield is the largest city, with museums, shops, and hot springs on the district list.

For a park stop, detour to Fremont Indian State Park. Heritage Self-Driving Tour #2 also offers Piute State Park and Otter Creek State Park when you want water between towns.

Then the road enters Headwaters, from the southern tip of Sevier County down Highway 89 to Long Valley Junction. Big Rock Candy Mountain stands a few miles north of Marysvale. Circleville holds the Parker cabin tied to Robert Leroy Parker, later known as Butch Cassidy. The Headwaters page notes a 127-mile Highway 89 drive from Sevier to Kanab, featured by the US Route 89 Appreciation Survey. You do not have to finish that full stretch today. Panguitch is the late-day anchor on the published self-drive.

Day 3: A parks day, or the gateway towns

Heritage Self-Driving Tour #2 treats day 3 as a choice among Bryce Canyon National Park, Cedar Breaks National Monument, and Zion National Park. Connecting all three in one day is ambitious. Many travelers pick two, or linger in the pioneer gateway towns instead.

From Highway 89, two approaches reach Cedar Breaks: Utah Highway 143 from Panguitch, or Utah Highway 14 west to Highway 148. Bryce sits in Boulder Loop country, with Scenic Byway 12 and the towns around the park. Zion is Utah’s first national park, and the only national park in Under the Rim.

If you want a fourth day, the published self-drive continues to Glen Canyon, Lake Powell, Kanab’s Little Hollywood, and the southern museum towns. Those stops are on the full Heritage Self-Driving Tour #2 page.

A 7-day trip: the Capitol Reef week

The week-long itinerary already on this site is the Capitol Reef 7 Day Tour. Use that page for the full day-by-day.

The tour is a week in Wayne County around Capitol Reef National Park. The park page describes a long, narrow park about 100 miles in length, open year-round. The tour uses Torrey, Bicknell, or Teasdale as a base and day-trips outward. Boulder Loop places Scenic Byway 24 from Loa to Hanksville through the park and the Fruita Rural Historic District.

The published week, in short:

  1. Capitol Reef National Park. Visitor center, Fruita Historic District (pioneer orchards, Gifford Homestead, petroglyph panels along Highway 24), the Scenic Drive, or Hickman Bridge.
  2. Cathedral Valley. Northern district of the park. High-clearance vehicles are strongly recommended. Check with rangers before you go.
  3. Loop the Fold and short slot canyons. Notom-Bullfrog Road or Burr Trail, plus Grand Wash and Capitol Gorge. Check flash-flood forecasts before entering narrow canyons.
  4. Shopping, Pleasant Creek, and Fish Lake. Torrey and Teasdale galleries, then alpine water at Fish Lake.
  5. Hike, bike, horseback, ATV, fish, or bird watch. A choose-your-own day on Wayne County trails and backroads. Stay on designated trails.
  6. Cainville and Hanksville. Rockhounding on appropriate public lands. Never collect inside the national park.
  7. Butch Cassidy Country, Goblin Valley, and Lake Powell. Goblin Valley State Park, then Glen Canyon National Recreation Area if the season allows.

Read each day’s stops, maps, and cautions on the Capitol Reef 7 Day Tour. If you want a Highway 89 week instead of a Wayne County week, start with the Travel Planner and Heritage Self-Driving Tour #2, then add district and park days from the pages linked below.

Travel planner and auto tour map

The free Utah Heritage Highway 89 Travel Planner gathers scenic byways, historic towns, parks, museums, and events. The map side is the Highway 89 map, parks, and scenic byways. The guide side is museums, itineraries, events, and visitor info. Both sides have print-ready PDFs on that page.

Tours & Itineraries adds family-friendly activities, historic sites, parks, and sample routes, including the Capitol Reef week, Heritage Self-Driving Tour #2, and the Bryce Canyon Country Tour. Plan a Visit also points to museums and local travel councils along the corridor.

The adopted management plan is the planning document behind the Heritage Area. Discovery Road follows stories along the same three roads: Highway 89, State Route 12, and State Route 24.

Districts and parks along the route

Each of the five districts has its own landscape, towns, and stories:

  • Little Denmark: Danish and other Scandinavian pioneer heritage and historic Main Streets in Sanpete Valley.
  • Sevier Valley: valley farms, museums, Fishlake National Forest, and Fremont Indian State Park, on Interstate 70 and Highway 89.
  • Headwaters: Sevier River headwaters, highland valleys, and Highway 89 towns from southern Sevier County to Long Valley Junction.
  • Boulder Loop: begins and ends on Highway 89, then uses Scenic Byways 12 and 24. Bryce Canyon, Grand Staircase country, Anasazi State Park Museum, Escalante Petrified Forest, and Capitol Reef.
  • Under the Rim: gateway country under the Colorado Plateau rims, including Kanab and Zion National Park.

Parks on this site include:

Pick a district, open the planner, and let the existing tour pages carry the longer days. That is the Highway 89 auto tour: the official Heritage Area route, ready for a Utah road trip of one day, three days, or a week.