America's Scenic Byways

Transcontinental Railroad Back Country Byway

90 miles - 3 to 4 hours to drive the byway.

Although one might look at Utah’s northwestern region and see nothing but vast, isolated desert, a sharp observer would see a historical playground distinguished by the Transcontinental Backcountry Byway. Traversing the flat lands of the Great Salt Lake Desert, the byway stretches between the area just west of Golden Spike National Historic Site and the Utah-Nevada border, following the deserted Central Pacific Railroad grade lain in 1903.