Pleasant Creek Canyon and the Skyline

Follow Forest Route 0037 to its head and it delivers you onto Skyline Drive, the dirt road that runs the crest of the Wasatch Plateau. Where the canyon started near 5,900 feet, the plateau road runs near and above 10,000, and the Mount Pleasant junction sits several miles into the southern half of Skyline. The climb is the reward: aspen and spruce, open meadows, and long views east toward the coal country and west back over Sanpete Valley.

The plateau is the shared backbone of Central Utah. Every Sanpete canyon, from Fairview and Ephraim to Manti, climbs to the same ridge, so The Local writes the long survey of Skyline Drive, its reservoirs and its season once, on the region Skyline Drive page. What Mount Pleasant owns is the approach. Pleasant Creek Canyon is one of the shortest, most direct ways onto the ridge, and the town at the bottom is the closest place to fuel up and sleep.

Treat the top as high, remote country. It is snow free and driveable for only a stretch of the year, there is no fuel or services once you leave town, and mountain weather can turn cold and wet in an hour even in July.

Pleasant Creek Canyon is one gate into the Arapeen, the off highway trail network that laces the top of the Wasatch Plateau. Trail groups describe the Arapeen as hundreds of miles of routes tied together by Skyline Drive, open to side by sides, ATVs and dirt bikes, and on the same tracks to hikers, bikers and horses. Mount Pleasant makes a natural base for it because Forest Route 0037 puts you on the ridge quickly.

The best known local ride is the Mt. Pleasant Loop. It climbs Pleasant Creek Canyon on 0037, joins Skyline Drive, and makes a circuit of roughly 45 miles that runs mostly between 8,000 and 10,000 feet, passing high reservoirs before dropping back toward town. Riders reckon on the better part of a day for it at trail speed. It is rated easygoing as mountain riding goes, mostly graded road, but it is long, high and remote.

The town supplies what a ride day needs, motels, restaurants and fuel, which is why staging out of Mount Pleasant is common. The machine in the driveway, the season of weeknight rides, the loop everyone knows by heart, that is the resident's version of this country, and it is the angle no trail map covers.

The Wasatch Plateau puts on one of the better aspen displays in this part of Utah, and Pleasant Creek Canyon is Mount Pleasant's front row seat. The aspen usually turn in late September and early October, a little earlier at the top of the plateau and later down at the canyon mouth, so the gold runs downhill over a couple of weeks. A drive up the canyon toward Skyline Drive in that window is the local leaf tour.

The exact peak moves with the weather each year, and an early cold snap or a wind storm can shorten it, so there is no calendar date to promise. The safe plan is to watch the plateau through late September and go on the first clear weekend after the aspen start to turn. Go before the first heavy snow, which can close the top while the mouth is still in color.

A fall drive pairs naturally with the town below, a look at the historic Main Street and a meal before or after the climb. For the town's other autumn draws, see the things to do roundup.

Mount Pleasant runs its own campground up the canyon, the Power Plant Campground, about 3.5 miles east of town by way of 200 South. It has eight campsites, and the city takes reservations online at around 20 dollars a night, with a two in the afternoon check in. It takes its name from the small municipal power plant on Pleasant Creek, a reminder that the creek has done work for the town for a long time.

What makes it useful is the position. It is close enough to run into Mount Pleasant for supplies or a meal, and it sits at the start of the canyon climb, so it is an easy base for a day on the Arapeen or a fall drive to the top. Eight sites is small, which keeps it quiet, but it also means it fills on a summer weekend.

Higher up on the plateau there is dispersed forest camping and the developed forest campgrounds along Skyline Drive, which are a region subject. The city's canyon campground is the close in, reservable option at the bottom.

Down at the valley floor, Mount Pleasant City Park at 1000 South State is the town's easy green space. It has two pavilions, one that seats about 60 and a larger one that seats about 80, and you can use them first come at no charge or reserve them ahead for a small fee, about 25 dollars for a half day or 40 for a full day. It is the ordinary, useful park, a place for a picnic or a stop with children rather than a mountain outing of its own.

It earns a spot on this page as the bottom end of the canyon day. A morning up Pleasant Creek Canyon and an afternoon in the shade at the park is a natural pairing, and the park is the flat, free, always open option when the top is under snow or the day is hot. The city keeps it, and reservations for the pavilions run through the city.

It sits a short drive from the historic core and the shops and cafes on Main Street, so it slots easily into a day spent in town rather than up the canyon.

The last stop is really the town itself, because Mount Pleasant works as the base camp for everything above it. It has motels, restaurants and fuel, the things a ride day or a drive to the top actually needs, and it sits right at the mouth of Pleasant Creek Canyon. For anyone staging a plateau trip, that combination of a full service town at the foot of a short climb is the practical draw.

At the canyon mouth there are private RV parks and campgrounds that cater to riders and travelers, with hookups and quick access to the Arapeen. They run on their own seasons and rates, so confirm before you count on a site, but they add capacity beyond the city's eight canyon campsites. Together with the Power Plant Campground and the forest camping higher up, they mean there is usually a place to sleep near the trail.

For the fuller picture, what a house here runs and how the neighborhoods lie, the practical Mount Pleasant city guide is the place to go next, with the living in Mount Pleasant page for the everyday side. This page has stayed with the canyon and the climb.