Recreation and Places of Interest

Utah’s great variety of beautiful scenery is one of the state’s outstanding tourist attractions. Rugged areas of colorful mesas, cliffs, and mountain peaks provide tourists and residents with excellent opportunities for hiking, camping, and riding. In the Wasatch Range and Uinta Mountains are many winter sports areas. A favorite activity for the more adventurous is boating on the Colorado and Green rivers.

National Parks

The National Park Service administers a large number of units in Utah. The national parks in Utah preserve several areas of great natural beauty. In Bryce Canyon National Park, in southern Utah, are some of the world’s most colorful and unusual rock spires, pinnacles, and domes. Canyonlands National Park, in southeastern Utah, covers a rugged area of high mesas and towering rock pinnacles. Zion National Park, in the southwestern part of the state, is noted for its canyons and mesas. Arches National Park lies in a region of red sandstone that has been weathered into natural bridges, arches, and other spectacular rock shapes. Capitol Reef National Park covers other areas of brilliantly colored sandstone formations.

Cedar Breaks National Monument has a spectacular amphitheater formed in bright pink cliffs. Three huge natural sandstone bridges formed by erosion are included in Natural Bridges National Monument. The largest-known natural bridge in the world is in Rainbow Bridge National Monument. A number of limestone caves on the side of Mount Timpanogos are preserved in Timpanogos Cave National Monument. Within Hovenweep National Monument are pre-Columbian Native American towers, pueblos, and cliff dwellings. Dinosaur National Monument is the site of a quarry containing numerous fossils. Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, one of the nation’s newest protected areas, is an area of scenic canyons, cliffs and rock formations.

Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, in southern Utah and northern Arizona, and Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area, in northeastern Utah and southeastern Wyoming, are popular recreation areas that have facilities for swimming, boating, and camping. In northern Utah is the Golden Spike National Historic Site, commemorating the completion in 1869 of the first transcontinental railroad in the United States.

National Forests

There are eight national forests in the state, encompassing nearly 3.3 million hectares (8.1 million acres). They offer facilities for hiking, riding, camping, hunting, and other recreational activities. The largest forest, Dixie National Forest, covers a section of rugged country in the southwest. In the northeastern corner is Ashley National Forest. Within the forest is the beautiful Red Gorge of the Green River and the Flaming Gorge Dam. Fishlake National Forest, which is principally in south central Utah, is divided into four sections. It includes Fish Lake, which is popular for trout fishing. Other national forests include Manti-La Sal, Sawtooth, Caribou, Wasatch-Cache, and Uinta national forests.

State Parks

Utah has 45 diverse and beautiful state parks. Dead Horse Point State Park, in the eastern part of the state, affords spectacular scenic views of canyons, buttes, mesas, and colorful cliffs. Newspaper Rock State Historical Monument in Indian Creek Canyon, is known for its pictographs, prehistoric drawings by Native Americans. Located along the west bank of the Green River is Green River State Park; in the scenic southwestern corner of the state is Dixie State Park.

This Is the Place State Park, near Salt Lake City, includes a huge granite and bronze monument commemorating the arrival of the Mormons in Utah. Territorial Statehouse State Park, in Fillmore, includes Utah’s first capitol building, which dates from 1855. Anasazi State Park, in south central Utah, contains replica Anasazi dwellings and has a museum of artifacts from a nearby ancient Native American village. Bear Lake, Willard Bay, Rockport Lake, and Scofield Lake state parks have facilities for picnicking and water sports.

Museums

A number of museums in the state also have exhibits pertaining to state and Mormon history, including the Mormon Church-affiliated Museum of Church History and Art in Salt Lake City and the Pioneer Village Museum in Farmington. The University of Utah has museums of fine arts and natural history. Other museums in Utah include the Utah Field House of Natural History State Park in Vernal, the Children’s Museum of Utah in Salt Lake City, and the Fairview Museum of History and Art in Fairview.

Other Places to Visit

There are many places to visit in and near Salt Lake City, including Temple Square, which contains the Mormon Temple and the Tabernacle, and Beehive House, built in 1855 as the home of Mormon President Brigham Young. Many motor vehicle speed records have been set on the Bonneville Salt Flats, a level area near the Nevada border in the Great Salt Lake Desert.

Other scenic places of interest in Utah include Goblin Valley, which lies 80 km (50 mi) southwest of Green River. The area is named for its hundreds of fantastically shaped rock formations, which are situated in a valley surrounded by rugged cliffs. In the Panguitch area of southwest Utah is a scenic drive that borders a vast wilderness of forests, canyons, and rock outcrops.

Source: MSN Encarta: Online Encyclopedia