Utah's Colorado Riverway

For most of its thousand-mile-plus tumble and grind toward the Gulf of California, and especially through Utah and Arizona, the Colorado River is entrenched within rugged canyons. Human access is limited, difficult and in many places downright rare except via the river itself.

But three paved byways along a 45-mile stretch near Moab - U-128, U-279 and the Kane Creek Road - give motorists, campers, bikers, hikers and river-runners an unusual opportunity to experience the great stream and its shoreline. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management, which administers most of the strip from Dewey Bridge on the north to MGM Bottom on the south, has come up with a suitably parklike name for the area: "The Colorado Riverway."Since Moab is a hub for a vast region of scenic wonders and destinations, including Arches and Canyonlands national parks and the LaSal Mountains, the Grand County Travel Council doesn't specifically highlight the river roads when telling visitors what they can see and do, but people often come back singing their praises, said Marian DeLay, the council's executive director.

"We've had a number of people come back (to the Moab Information Center), and inevitably I hear them say, `You guys don't advertize 128 - and it's your best-kept secret!' or `I've never been on such a beautiful drive,' " she said. "We get it from everybody."

In his 1982 edition of "Utah: A Guide to the State," writer Ward Roylance described the river road as "one of the choicest in Utah . . . , providing an ever-changing visual feast of painted cliffs, great buttes and spires, green valleys, lofty peaks and a cluster of most unusual pinnacles known as Fisher Towers."

Besides the Towers, which rise over a campground and a 21/2-mile hiking trail, the roads are lined with striking features, including such photogenic formations as Castle Rock and The Priest and the Nuns and Jug Handle Arch. Other graceful spans, such as Corona Arch and Morning Glory Natural Bridge, are reached via hiking trails.

Bike trails radiate in all directions, including those to Poison Spider Mesa, the Porcupine Rim and, at the old Dewey Bridge, the famed Kokopelli's Trail. Bikers and four-wheelers head off on the Shafer Trail, the winding Onion Creek road, the LaSal Mountain Loop and more. Petroglyphs, pictographs and even primordial dinosaur tracks are visible along the roadsides.

And river-runners - novices and veterans, private and commercial - relish this generally quiet stretch of the Colorado.