The 8 best things to do in Monroe.

A mile from Mystic, the same geothermal field surfaces again at Red Hill, and this is the free one. Four rock lined pools sit on a red travertine mound, fed by a single hot source that cools as it steps downhill, with the middle pools running about 100 to 110 degrees. It sits on private ground whose owners allow public use, so the deal is simple: pack out everything you bring and leave it cleaner than you found it.

It is bare bones on purpose. A gravel pull off, a pit toilet, no changing room, no showers and no staff, open year round to dusk. That plainness is exactly the appeal for a lot of soakers, and it is the honest counterpart to the reservation and the buses down the road.

Two producing springs a mile apart, both building travertine, are the thing that makes Monroe a geothermal town rather than a town that happens to have a hot spring. That whole story sits on the geothermal town sibling page.

Monroe was settled in 1864 and briefly carried the pioneer name Alma before it was renamed for President James Monroe in 1872. That first chapter is kept in the Camp Alma Relic Hall, the town's Daughters of Utah Pioneers museum at 155 North Main. The building is part of the story: the Daughters moved an 1800s log cabin to the site in the late 1930s and have run it as a relic hall since 1938.

It anchors a short, plain Main Street. This is a working small town street rather than a restored tourist block, so treat the relic hall as the reason to stop and the street as a slow lap on the way through, with a look at the old brick storefronts and the pioneer era city hall.

Hours are limited and often by arrangement, the way small pioneer museums usually run, so call the city office or ask locally before you count on getting inside. It is a half hour stop, not an afternoon.

Every small town has its park, and Monroe's is the green center of local life: shade and grass, a playground and swings, picnic tables, and courts and fields for soccer, tennis and volleyball. It is the honest town square, the kind of place that fills up on a summer evening, and it is a good spot to spread a picnic and let kids run between a hot spring soak and the drive.

It is also the hub of the town's Pioneer Days each summer, the parade and program celebration around the 24th of July that many Utah towns keep. In Monroe that stretches across a few late July days with a children's parade, a community barbecue, a car show, a concert and fireworks. Check monroeut.gov for the current dates if you want to time a visit to it.

The wall of mountain east of town is the Sevier Plateau, and its high point, Monroe Peak, stands at about 11,225 feet, nearly 6,000 feet above the valley floor. In a normal year a rough mountain road climbs up Monroe Canyon and runs along the plateau toward the peak, a long, high clearance, seasonal drive usually open only from about July into October once the snow clears. From the top the view runs across half of central Utah.

This is not a normal year for the mountain. The 2025 Monroe Canyon Fire burned about 73,721 acres up the canyon, the largest Utah wildfire of that year, and the burn scar has since sent flooding and debris down onto the road. Monroe Canyon Road and the Monrovian Park picnic area have been closed for post fire recovery, with no set reopening date at the time of writing, so do not plan the climb without checking first.

The mountain is worth knowing about for another reason. It is the site of a large, multi agency aspen restoration project, one of the West's showcase efforts to bring back aspen lost to a century of fire suppression. The full outdoors story, and the current access picture, is on the Monroe Peak and the canyons sibling page.

About half an hour west, where I-70 threads Clear Creek Canyon, Fremont Indian State Park protects one of the largest Fremont culture sites ever found in Utah. It was uncovered in the 1980s when the interstate was cut through the canyon, and the museum and the short canyon trails now hold rock art panels and pit house sites you can walk right up to.

It is the closest real half day trip from Monroe: a small museum, a set of interpretive trails, and a canyon full of petroglyphs, all a few steps off the freeway. The deeper story of the Fremont people across this part of the state is on the region Fremont Indian page.

Drive south from Monroe on US-89 and about 25 miles down, just north of Marysvale, the canyon walls turn yellow and orange. That is Big Rock Candy Mountain, a hillside of altered volcanic rock stained by ancient hot spring chemistry, named for the old hobo folk song. There is a roadside resort at its foot, a stop on the Paiute ATV Trail, and a pull off where everyone stops for the photo.

It is a short, scenic add to a Monroe day and a natural pairing with the drive to Fremont Indian, since both run off the same corridor. It also links the town into the wider US-89 heritage highway that threads the Sevier River canyon south toward Marysvale and Piute County.

East and up, about 45 minutes from Monroe, Fish Lake is the big alpine lake of this part of Utah, sitting above 8,800 feet in the Fishlake National Forest. It is a genuine destination rather than a roadside stop: lake trout and splake fishing, historic lodges, stands of aspen, and cool air on the days the valley floor is hot.

It is also home to Pando, the enormous single aspen organism that shares one root system across the hillside, though the science of that belongs on the region page, which covers the whole lake as a day a drive away. For a Monroe visit, treat Fish Lake as the full day option when you have the time. The details are on the region Fish Lake page.