Nebo Loop Summit

The Nebo Loop tops out above 9,300 feet on the shoulder of the mountain, where the trees thin and the views open in every direction. This is the high country the Nebo Loop is built around — the payoff stretch the climb out of either canyon spends miles working toward. To the northwest, the celebrated Utah Valley Overlook drops away to Utah Lake and the towns strung along the Wasatch Front, the whole valley laid out far enough below that the cities turn quiet and abstract. To the south and west, the bulk of Mount Nebo — at 11,928 feet the highest peak in the Wasatch Range — fills the sky, near enough from here to read the tiers of rock and forest on its long east face.

There is no single summit sign to pull over for, no one official top. The high point is really a string of pullouts and overlooks strung along the loftiest few miles of road, each with a slightly different angle on the valleys below and the peaks around, and the way to do it is to stop at several rather than gamble on the best one. A few miles down the Payson Canyon side lie Payson Lakes, the green heart of the drive, and partway down that same descent the forest closes over the red spires of Devil's Kitchen. Like the high reach of every Wasatch byway, this is summer-and-fall country: snow shuts the top of the loop for much of the year, and even at midsummer the wind up here keeps an edge. Time it for late afternoon, when the low sun turns the whole basin gold and the valleys below drop into shadow first.