Utah Route Winds Down Past Aqua Pools Maybe Hot Springs?

Does anyone know, is highway 12 open in the winter time (December)?

Thank you for the links. Somewhere along Highway 12 would be the most likely scenario.

It was definitely in Utah. When you started down the paved highway, you had to take switchbacks around these tiny pools that had...white, like calcium deposits and they were aqua. I don't know if they were hot springs or not. I was driving a camper down switchbacks so I could barely enjoy the view. I just remember us saying that we weren't in Kansas anymore. The view out and beyond wasn't totally desert barren, but fairly close to that.

Aqua pools - how about the potash mining operation near Moab? The evaporation pools, as seen from Dead Horse Point, come in all kinds of color. But the only roads that wind down to that valley require 4L gearing, or lots of trust in your brakes.

Like many people here we have thoroughly covered southeast Utah from Capitol Reefs south. And I don't recall any volcanic structures in that area. A hot spring implies volcanism. Certainly not along Utah Hwy 12 in between Torrey and Escalante.

However a search for

Utah hot springs

shows some hot springs in the western part of the state. That is desolate and empty landscape. We have made a couple of trips thru there. But one page shows these:

Hot springs

I would guess your location may be on that page. You were way off the beaten path if that's true.

Maybe the hogsback section of Hwy 12:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zL7BJ-0DzE

:)
Lynn

Gordon....I love travelling out west because over every rise is a new spectacular landscape, geologically varied and it continues to change from each and every rise. Just got back from a trip in AZ. My mother and I were located out of Heber, but we traveled the whole of that state from Phoenix on up to Canyon de Chelly and just loved it! Can't wait to get back out to Utah and New Mexico. Yeah...I am a greedy traveler!

sounds neat, I'd like to learn this spot too... subscribed!