Porsches  are  at home in the West --  wide open spaces, plenty of twisting roads, very little traffic.  My wife Sandy and I were on our way from Moab, UT to St. George, UT. We'd started the day with sunrise in Arches National Park and would that day and the next touch upon three other Natl Parks, Capitol Reef, Bryce Canyon and Zion. These were all places we'd read about and they lived up to expectations. But for me the best things are often the unexpected .

We had just had lunch after stopping at Capitol Reef and turned South on SR12 from Torrey (pop 138) . We were talking and kind of semi-paying attention to the scenery as we wound our way up through a series of sweeping curves onto higher ground. We emerged from a pine forest and through a last 180 degree turn to find ourselves on what was the most imposing whalesback I've ever seen. Suddenly we could see more than 50 miles in all directions from a spine of rock that felt like it was 10 feet wide with drop-offs on both sides of 1500 feet or more. My attention to driving increased (as did my grip on the steering wheel). The ridge went on for several miles and then the road dropped off it through a crack in the rocks and it was behind us.