In Garfield County just south of Boulder, Utah, Scenic Byway UT-12 intersects with Scenic Backway: The Burr Trail Road.
There are not two connected roads in the US that can match these in aesthetic density.
Along the Burr Trail road, each corner and switchback flashes a new color and unique register of silence; the straightways vanish into the desert varnish but not before illuminating a peripheral vision, a wonder. You feel the weight of stillness emerging from a silence palpable, dense, deep. A density that feels different in the deep black night of a winter sky than it does in the intense whiteness of the vibrations of a high midsummer afternoon.
On UT-12 you pass through National Parks and National Monuments and on a road that looks off sheer canyon walls on both sides of your automobile.
And in the cottonwood trees, crows watch knowingly.
Kaden Figgins also knows. His family moved to Panguitch when he was two. He graduated from Panguitch High School, took a degree in finance from Dixie State University, or whatever it will be called, and is now the Director of Planning and Economic Development for Garfield County. He estimates one half of the dollars that come into Garfield County are from tourists but tourists only show up in the summer. He would like to attract 50-100 high paying jobs to the county. Kaden reports: “USU’s Rural Online Initiative notes one new high-paying job in a rural county, like Garfield, has an equivalent economic benefit of 400 new high-paying jobs along the Wasatch Front.”
If you want to get anything done, you need to hire a country kid who has enough grit to know unless you’re willing to get on your work pants and shirt the opportunity may slip away, and enough good-heartedness to win the trust of those being pitched.
I’m betting Kaden brings in those jobs.
