Willard Peak and Inspiration Point, the roof of Weber County.

Inspiration Point is the payoff of the drive, an overlook high on the mountain above Willard Basin where the road tops out and the whole valley opens beneath you. It is the reason people make the climb, and it earns the name.

From up here the Great Salt Lake spreads out to the west, Willard Bay sits blue against the shoreline directly below, and the valley floor with its towns and orchards lies far under your feet. On a clear day the view runs for miles up and down the front. It is the kind of overlook that makes a rough road feel worth it.

The drive itself is part of the scenery. As the road climbs through Willard Basin you pass the old terraces cut into the slopes by Civilian Conservation Corps crews in the 1930s, long green benches built to slow runoff after the floods that once tore through town. Knowing what they are turns them from odd lines on the hillside into part of the story.

The route to the top is Willard Peak Road, a Forest Service dirt road signed as Forest Road 20084. Despite the name, it does not start in Willard. It begins up in Mantua, the small reservoir town just east over the bench, and climbs from there.

From Mantua the road runs roughly 14 miles of dirt, gaining serious elevation as it switchbacks up and into Willard Basin before reaching Inspiration Point. It is slow going. Large exposed rocks, loose and steep pitches, and narrow stretches are all part of it, and you share the road with ATV and off-highway riders who come up out of Mantua for the same country.

This is a high-clearance, four-wheel-drive road, and most people who know it will tell you a low passenger car has no business up there. Give yourself far more time than the mileage suggests, and treat the descent with the same care as the climb.

Willard Peak Road is a summer road. For much of the year the high basin is under deep snow and the route is impassable, so it opens only once the drifts melt out, roughly from July into October in a normal year.

The sweet spot is usually late July through September, when the road is dry, the wildflowers are out in the basin, and the high country is at its best. Early in the season lingering snowdrifts can block the top even when the lower road is clear, and by late October winter starts closing it down again.

The exact dates move with the weather every year, and there is no substitute for checking current conditions before you commit to the drive. A road that is open and dry in early September can be a different animal after the first heavy storm.

The one thing to get straight before you go is where the trip actually begins. The peak stands above Willard, but there is no route to it from the Willard side of the mountain. The road, and the usual way up, both start over the bench in Mantua, in Box Elder County. It is a quirk worth savoring: the highest ground in Weber County is reached by a dirt road that leaves from a different town in a different county.

If you would rather walk than drive, the mountain also connects to the Ben Lomond trail on the Weber County side, a long and strenuous hike that runs the ridge and can be linked to Willard Peak. That is a full day on foot with real elevation gain, and it is a very different undertaking from the drive.

Either way, do not point your car up a Willard street looking for the trailhead. Head for Mantua, and read the region guide to that side of the bench before you go.