Things To Do

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Canyonlands National Park

Travel time from Canyonlands location: 1 hr 5 min

Formed by the currents and tributaries of Utah’s Green and Colorado rivers, Canyonlands is filled with towering mesas, pinnacles, cliffs, spires, and deep canyons that stretch across 527 square miles.

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Moab

Travel time from Canyonlands location: 58 min

One of the best adventure towns in the world, Moab gained its reputation for outdoor recreation in the heart of red rock country.

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Arches National Park

Travel time from Canyonlands location: 1 hr 8 min

Spanning over 73 thousand acres just northwest of Moab, Arches National Park is famous for it sandstone towers, hoodoos, balanced rocks, and, of course, arches.

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Canyon Country Discovery Center

Travel time from Canyonlands location: 7 min

Filled to the brim with education and adventure programs, there’s no better place to plan a trip around the Colorado Plateau than the Canyon Country Discovery Center. Perfect for youth and adults alike, they’ll help you out with anything from day adventures to youth summer camps to corporate retreats.

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Frontier Museum

Travel time from Canyonlands location: 4 min

Housed in a historic barn in downtown Monticello, the museum is home to an array of historic and pre-historic items from the local area.

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Hideout Golf Course

Travel time from Canyonlands location: 5 min

One of Utah’s most popular golf courses, the 18-hole Hideout Golf Course offers a wide range of scenery year-round, perfect weather during the season, a driving range, practice greens, a 3-hole junior course for younger learners, different elevations, and a new challenge presented to you at each hole.

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Harts Draw Road & Loop

Travel time from Canyonlands location: 31 min

Without stops, the 1 hour and 20 minute drive of Harts Draw Road makes its way through the Abajo Mountains, providing you with views of beautiful mountain scenery, breathtaking desert landscapes, and sprawling vistas of red rock canyons.

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Manti-La Sal National Forest

Travel time from Canyonlands location: Just up the road!

Spreading from central Utah all the way down to the southeastern parts of Utah and the western edge of Colorado, the Manti–La Sal National Forest covers more than 1.2 million acres.

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Star Gazing

Travel time: Here, at the Domes!

With the secluded nature of our location light pollution almost doesn’t exist, leading to stunning views of the night sky.

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Church Rock

Travel time from Canyonlands location: 19 min

Located just north of Monticello, This oddly shaped sandstone formation is not, in fact, hollowed out and made into a church as local lore would have you believe, but is still a fun spot to stop at and explore.

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Newspaper Rock

Travel time from Canyonlands location: 35 min

One of the West’s most famous rock art sites, Native American Indians have been engraving and drawing on Newspaper Rock for more than 2,000 years. The rock is named Tse’ Hane in Navajo, or “rock that tells a story.” And that it certainly does; filled with stories of hunting patterns, crop cycles, and the mythologies of their lives, Newspaper rock is certainly a worthwhile site to visit on your trip in southern Utah.

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LDS Monticello Temple

Travel time from Canyonlands location: 6 min

Originally dedicated in July of 1997, this small town’s temple is the 53rd operating temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

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Lloyd’s Lake

Travel time from Canyonlands location: 5 min

Lloyd’s Lake is a man-made reservoir just 2 miles from Monticello. Excellent for swimming and fishing, it offers a beautiful water vista with a 2.5 mile meandering trail around the lake.

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Butler Wash Hike

Travel time from Canyonlands location: 59 min

An easy walk for hikers of any skill, Butler Wash is filled with ancient ruins as old as 500 AD. The most common ruins are a short, 1-mile round trip hike, while the others will take a bit longer. Please observe the leave-no-trace policy and look, but do not touch.

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The Robertson Pasture Trail

Travel time from Canyonlands location: 21 min

Although the first half-mile to a mile is tough uphill climbing, it’ll all be worth it once you start the decent. Up there with the finest trails in North America, you’ll be graced with indescribable views of everything from aspen mountains to red rock canyons all in this 7.2 mile (11.6 km) track with a mere 630 ft of ascent to a massive 2300 ft of decent.

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Canyon Rims Recreation Area

Travel time from Canyonlands location: 25 min

There’s nothing but stellar red rock views to see here! Smack dab in-between Moab and Monticello, visitors can tour this vast area by a wide array of scenic overlooks, OHV trails, hiking and biking trails, and rock climbing.

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Needles Outlook

Travel time from Canyonlands location: 54 min

Although this spot is not in the park itself, it offers incredible views of the Needles District of Canyonlands National Park. From the edge of the plateau rim you’ll be able to see the cliffs and chasms of canyon country stretch out below you as far as the eye can see.

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The Dinosaur Museum

Travel time from Canyonlands location: 26 min

Tucked into the small southern Utah town of Blanding, just south of Monticello, this Dinosaur Museum offers some of the most complete displays and rarest artifacts in the paleo world. With everything from fossilized bones and eggs to actual fossilized dinosaur skin, this place has it all.

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Edge of the Cedars State Park Museum

Travel time from Canyonlands location: 27 min

This family-friendly museum complex houses the larges collection of Ancestral Puebloan pottery and relics in southeaster Utah, including an excavated and restored kiva (a partially subterranean ceremonial room). Along with the complex itself, guided tours of the ancient site are available during which you will see restored dwellings, archaeological exhibits, and auditorium.

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Monticello Wind Farm

Travel time from Canyonlands location: 9 min

Located just northwest of the small town of Monticello, this massive wind farm boasts 27 towering wind turbines, excellent for a quick photo shoot. The wind farm is accessible via County Road 196, which breaks off of the highway just north of town.

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Looking Glass Rock

Travel time from Canyonlands location: 40 min

Just a few miles off of Hwy 191, the road between Moab and Monticello, lies this hidden gem. The climb up to the arch is fairly steep, but definitely doable without any kind of equipment, and once you’re up, the backside opens into a large alcove with a stunning view.

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Behind the Rocks

Travel time from Canyonlands location: 1 hr 5 min

Although this land isn’t the most suited for hiking, the views offered here are breathtaking. With massive Navajo sandstone domes, fins, cliffs, and arches, this mostly barren landscape is a sight to behold.

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Indian Creek Canyon

Travel time from Canyonlands location: 41 min

Known as a rock climbing mecca, Indian Creek has beautiful scenery to be enjoyed weather you’re climbing up the side of one of its cliffs, or just driving through. Offering everything from climbing to hiking and camping, this free-to-roam red rock land has something for everyone.

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Hovenweep National Monument

Travel time from Canyonlands location: 1 hr 20 min

Known for its six abandoned Ancestral Puebloan ruins, Hovenweep National Monument is located on land in southwestern Colorado and southeastern Utah on the Cajon Mesa of the Great Sage Plain. These 700-year-old ruins can be visited by paved and dirt roads, but only hiking will get you the full experience.

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Canyons of the Ancients

Travel time from Canyonlands location: 1 hr

Canyons of the Ancients National Monument is a national monument protecting an archaeologically-significant landscape located in the southwest of Colorado. From cliff dwellings to pot shards scattered across more than 6,000 recorded sites to the Trail of the Ancient’s Scenic Byway, there are enough gorgeously stunning vistas here to occupy you for a century.

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Grand Gulch

Travel time from Canyonlands location: 1 hr 25 min

This is a truly unique location in Southeastern Utah. Remote and rugged backcountry, the area is accessible only by horse or on foot. The Anasazi ("Ancient Ones") flourished in Grand Gulch between 700 and 2,000 years ago. As a whole, the Grand Gulch Primitive Area sprawls over 37,500 acres of canyons and mesas, accessible via a number of trail heads, most of which are located just off S.R. 261.

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Goosenecks State Park

Travel time from Canyonlands location: 1 hr 17 min

Look down upon the San Juan River 1,000 ft below you and see the results of 300 million years of erosion from this park. Striking an uncannily similar appearance to the much more famous Horseshoe bend, this park is located near the southern border of the state a short distance from Mexican Hat, Utah.

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Moki Dugway

Travel time from Canyonlands location: 1 hr 25 min

The Moki (or Mokee) Dugway is a staggering, graded dirt switchback road carved into the face of the cliff edge of Cedar Mesa on Utah Highway 261. Not for the faint-hearted, Moki’s 10% grades and 5 mph switchbacks make for an exhilarating trip, with a view! Just be sure to keep an eye on the weather conditions.

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Valley of the Gods

Travel time from Canyonlands location: 1 hr 30 min

A hidden gem with scenery similar to that of nearby Monument Valley, the Valley of the Gods is a scenic sandstone valley that offers isolated buttes, towering pinnacles, and wide open spaces the seem to go on forever. A 17-mile dirt and gravel road winds through the valley with incredible views.

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Mexican Hat Rock

Travel time from Canyonlands location: 1 hr 30 min

This geological oddity get its name from its shape, resembling a sombrero. A giant hoodoo rising next to the small town of Mexican Hat, named after the rock, this area is surrounded by spectacular views.

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Monument Valley

Travel time from Canyonlands location: 1 hr 40 min

Monument Valley is known for its massive towering sandstone buttes. The park, frequently an iconic filming location for the American West, it is accessed by the looping, 17-mile Valley Drive. The famous, steeply sloped Mittens buttes can be viewed from the road or from overlooks such as John Ford’s Point.

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Mesa Verde

Travel time from Canyonlands location: 1 hr 15 min

Located in southwest Colorado, Mesa Verde is known for its well-preserved Ancestral Puebloan cliff dwellings, notably the huge Cliff Palace. The Chapin Mesa Archaeological Museum has exhibits on the ancient Native American culture. Mesa Top Loop Road winds past archaeological sites and overlooks, including Sun Point Overlook with panoramic canyon views, while Petroglyph Point Trail has several rock carvings.

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Cortez Sculpture Garden

Travel time from Canyonlands location: 1 hr 10 min

Cortez Sculpture Garden is a curious work of yard art displaying hundreds of spare car parts sculptures. Creatures made of mufflers lounge along a creek engaged in various activities.

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Natural Bridges National Monument

Travel time from Canyonlands location: 1 hr 20 min

Nestled away from the highway’s view, the incredible force of water and the ever persistent ticking of time has carved three spectacular natural bridges out of White Canyon. These stunning rock bridges can be accessed by moderate to difficult trails, or viewed by way of a nine-mile scenic drive nearby.

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