Swim, launch a boat and camp at Huntington State Park
Northwest edge of town · State park day use fee · Best May to September
Huntington State Park wraps 237 acres around Huntington North Reservoir, which was finished in 1966 as part of an Emery County irrigation and recreation project and sits at valley level rather than up the mountain. It is warm water, which in this part of Utah is unusual and is the whole point: it comes up to honest swimming temperature in summer and it takes water skis.
The park runs 22 camping units with modern restrooms, hot showers and a sewage dump station but no hookups, a large covered group pavilion, picnic sites and a boat ramp. The fishing is largemouth bass, bluegill and channel catfish, and locals also run crawdad traps. What makes it matter is proximity: this is five minutes from any house in Huntington, which is not a sentence you can write about most reservoirs in Utah.
This is not the reservoir the mammoth came out of
Two waters in this valley are called some version of Huntington Reservoir and the difference is about 3,200 vertical feet. The one inside the state park is Huntington North Reservoir, warm, at the edge of town. The one at the top of SR-31, twenty nine miles up the canyon at roughly 9,000 feet, is Huntington Reservoir, cold and small, and that is where a Columbian mammoth was dug out of the dam works in 1988. Published writing about this town mixes the two constantly.
Come on a weekday if you want the water to yourself
A warm water reservoir five minutes from town in a valley where the alternative is an hour of gravel is going to be busy on a July Saturday, and it is. Midweek in June or September the place empties out and the same water is calm enough for a paddleboard. Ring the park before a shoulder season visit rather than assuming, because staffing and services at a small Utah state park move with the season.
The details
Getting there
Follow SR-10 to the north end of Huntington and take the signed park entrance on the west side. It is the only reservoir you can reach from this town without leaving pavement.
Before you go
- Camping is 22 units with showers and a dump station but no hookups. Book ahead for summer weekends.
- Fishing needs a current Utah licence. Check the rules for this specific water before you fish it.
- It is a shallow warm water reservoir, so levels move with the irrigation year. Confirm before hauling a boat.
- There is no lifeguard. Swim the way you would swim anywhere unsupervised.
- Afternoon wind is a real feature of Castle Valley in spring. Paddlecraft are better off in the morning.
Fish the fly only water below Electric Lake
Upper Huntington Creek · Utah fishing licence · June to October
Fifteen minutes up SR-31 from Main Street, Huntington Creek runs out of Electric Lake and the rules change. The stretch from the lake down to Engineers and Flood canyons, roughly five miles of it, is managed as artificial fly only water with a two fish limit. Below Engineers Canyon the general statewide rules take over and the character of the fishing changes with them.
The fish are wild brown, tiger and cutthroat trout, mostly in the ten to sixteen inch range, and the water is small enough that a competent angler can read it from the road. This is the thing residents here brag about, and the brag survives checking: it is a genuine blue ribbon stretch fifteen minutes from a driveway, in a town where houses trade for a fraction of the Wasatch Front.
The regulation boundary is a place, not a sign you can miss
The fly only section is bounded by Electric Lake at the top and the Engineers and Flood canyon confluences at the bottom, and the rules on either side of those points are different. Utah's fishing regulations are published water by water and they change from year to year, so read the current rule for upper Huntington Creek before you tie anything on rather than working from what somebody told you last season.
Runoff decides the season more than the calendar does
Spring melt off the Wasatch Plateau pushes this creek hard and colours it, so the water usually comes into shape in June and fishes well through October. Late summer and early autumn are the reliable months. The canyon is also where afternoon thunderstorms build in July and August, and a small creek in a steep canyon responds to rain faster than a big river does.
The details
Getting there
West out of Huntington on SR-31, past the power plant and up through the canyon. The creek runs beside the road for much of the climb and the fly only stretch is the upper end of it, below the Electric Lake dam.
Before you go
- The upper stretch runs on artificial flies with a two fish limit. Read this year's rule before you tie on.
- Below Engineers Canyon the general statewide rules apply. Know which side of the line you are on.
- Mobile coverage in the canyon is patchy and gone in places. Tell somebody where you are going.
- Afternoon storms build fast over the plateau in July and August. Get off small water when it does.
- There is no fuel or shop anywhere on SR-31 between Huntington and Fairview. Fill up in town.
Drive the Energy Loop to the top of Huntington Canyon
SR-31 west from Main Street · Free · Year round, with winter caveats
SR-31 is the south branch of the Huntington and Eccles Canyons National Scenic Byway, designated a National Scenic Byway on 15 June 2000 and known locally as the Energy Loop. From Huntington it runs about 47.7 miles to Fairview on US-89, climbing from the valley floor to over 9,600 feet on the Wasatch Plateau. The whole of it is paved.
The name is earned rather than decorative. You pass a coal fired power plant in the first few miles, the road to the Crandall Canyon mine after that, and the memorial to the nine men lost there in 2007. Higher up it becomes aspen, spruce, Electric Lake and a small reservoir at the summit that produced a Columbian mammoth in 1988. The canyon page takes the stops in order, with the winter picture and the current forest closure.
Autumn is the week to plan around
The aspen stands on the upper half of this road turn in late September and early October and the byway fills with people who drove a long way for it. The window is short, it moves with the year, and the Ferron Ranger District on 435-636-3580 has a better idea of where the colour currently is than any published calendar does. Come on a weekday if you can.
It is open in winter and that is not the same as easy
As of August 2026 SR-31 is plowed and maintained through the winter and is not on the list of Utah roads gated for the season. It is still a 9,600 foot pass with avalanche paths crossing it. On 12 March 2023 UDOT closed it from milepost 33 near the Crandall Canyon junction up to milepost 18 after a run of avalanches and did not reopen it until 16 March. Check conditions before a winter crossing rather than trusting the map.
The details
Getting there
Turn west off SR-10 in the middle of Huntington. The road climbs continuously and comes out at Fairview on US-89 in the Sanpete Valley, so it works as a through route rather than a loop back to town.
Before you go
- No fuel, no shop and no reliable signal anywhere between Huntington and Fairview.
- It is a genuine mountain pass in winter. Check UDOT conditions before you commit to it.
- Wildlife on the road at dawn and dusk is a constant on this canyon. Slow down.
- Forest closures can shut side roads without touching the highway. Ring 435-636-3580 to check.
- Coming down eastbound in the dark, the plant lights up the canyon mouth. That is normal.
Stand on the rim at the Wedge Overlook
San Rafael Swell Recreation Area · Free · Spring and autumn
The Wedge Overlook is the view Huntington is trading on when it calls itself the north entrance to the San Rafael Swell. The rim sits about a thousand feet above the San Rafael River, looking down into a gorge that everybody calls the Little Grand Canyon, and the resemblance is close enough that the nickname has stuck for a century.
Getting there is about twenty miles of graded gravel running east from SR-10 north of Castle Dale, which puts it roughly 45 minutes from Huntington. There is no gate, no entrance station and no fee. There are pit toilets, designated camping sites back from the edge, and no water at all. The Wedge page carries the road detail, the Good Water Rim trail and the camping rules.
Camping on the rim itself is not allowed, and there is a reason
The BLM keeps the rim clear so it stays available for parking, picnics and day use rather than being occupied by whoever arrived first on Friday. Designated camping sites sit back from the edge, in the junipers, before you reach the canyon. It is a small rule that makes a large difference to what the place feels like on a busy weekend, and it is worth respecting rather than testing.
There is no fence and there is no phone signal
This is unimproved rim on public land. The edge is the edge, in places it undercuts, and a thousand feet is a thousand feet. Mobile coverage is absent across most of the mesa, so there is no calling for help and no looking up the way back. Download the map before you leave town, keep children and dogs well back from the lip, and treat the whole visit as a remote one, because it is.
The details
Getting there
Head south out of town, pick up the signed gravel road east of Castle Dale, and stay with the Wedge signs at each junction. Allow the better part of an hour, because gravel is slower than the mileage suggests.
Before you go
- No water anywhere out there. Carry more than you think a half day needs.
- Graded gravel turns slick and rutted when wet. Read the sky before you commit to the drive.
- Camping is in designated sites back from the rim, not on it. Pit toilets, no taps.
- The rim is unfenced and undercut in places. Keep well back from the edge.
- No mobile coverage across most of the mesa. Download offline maps in town.
Walk to the Buckhorn Wash pictograph panel
Buckhorn Draw, off the Cleveland road · Free · Spring and autumn
Buckhorn Wash cuts south through the northern Swell, and partway down it a wall of sandstone carries one of the finest Barrier Canyon style pictograph panels anywhere. These are painted figures in red ochre, not carvings, and the style is more than two thousand years old. Later Fremont petroglyphs sit alongside them, and so do the names a Civilian Conservation Corps crew cut into the rock in the 1930s.
The site has a short trail, interpretive panels, a pit toilet, a shade structure and picnic tables, and it costs nothing. Four miles further down the wash the road reaches the San Rafael River and the swinging bridge the CCC built there, which is Utah's oldest intact suspension bridge and is now walked rather than driven. The Buckhorn Wash page takes the whole drive.
The panel you are looking at was rescued once already
Buckhorn Wash carried a branch of the Old Spanish Trail, which meant traffic, which meant graffiti, and the panel was defaced repeatedly over more than a century. For Utah's 1996 state centennial, Emery County residents started a conservation project, carried out jointly with the BLM and state and county government and executed by a professional art conservator over about six weeks. What you see is the result. That history is the argument for keeping your hands off it.
Pigment behaves differently from a carving
Painted rock art is more fragile than pecked rock art, not less. The ochre sits on the surface rather than being cut into it, so touching, wetting, chalking or leaning against the wall takes some of it away, and nothing puts it back. Photograph from the trail and from a distance, do not add anything to the rock, and take nothing off the ground. There is no attendant here; the site survives on how visitors behave.
The details
Getting there
East and south out of the valley on the Buckhorn Draw road, which is reached from the Cleveland and Castle Dale side. The panel is signed, on the west wall of the wash, with a car park, a shade structure and a pit toilet.
Before you go
- Do not touch the painted figures. Pigment comes off and does not go back on.
- Photograph from the trail. No chalk, no water, no rubbings, and take nothing off the ground.
- Flash flooding is a genuine risk in a wash. Do not drive it with storms building.
- No water, fuel, shop or signal anywhere on this road. Everything comes from town.
- The road is graded gravel and it is long. Carry a real spare and know how to fit it.
See the bone bed at Jurassic National Monument
22 miles east of town · 5 dollars a head · Thursday to Sunday in season
Twenty two miles east of Huntington, on a hillside that looks like nothing at all, sits the Cleveland-Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry: over 12,000 fossils recovered from at least 74 individual animals, including more than 46 individual Allosaurus fragilis. That is more of one predator from one place than anywhere else on earth, and the reason for it is still argued over.
The site became Jurassic National Monument under federal law in March 2019, the same act that created the San Rafael Swell Recreation Area. The visitor centre carries more than 2,000 square feet of exhibits and a mounted Allosaurus skeleton. The monument page has the season, the hours, the fee and the current construction position.
Check the season and the day before you drive out
This is not somewhere you turn up on a whim. It keeps a four day week outside high summer and it shuts altogether through the winter, so the commonest way to waste an afternoon out of Huntington is to drive twenty two miles to a locked gate. The monument page carries the current days, hours and admission as checked in August 2026, and the field office in Price on 435-636-3600 will tell you what is true on your particular day.
As of August 2026 the dig site enclosure is shut for construction
Work is going on at the dig site enclosure and it is shut to visitors while that happens. Everything else on the site is running: the exhibits, the picnic area, and trails routed around the works. The agency has said it expects to be finished in late summer or autumn, which means somebody arriving in September may find a different site from somebody arriving in August. Ring and ask rather than reading it off a page.
The details
Getting there
SR-155 out of the north end of town, through the farm country at Cleveland and Elmo, then the signed turn toward the quarry. Budget 45 minutes rather than what 22 miles looks like it should take.
Before you go
- Open Thursday to Sunday outside high summer, and closed altogether in winter. Ring before you drive.
- As of August 2026 the dig site enclosure is closed for construction. The visitor centre is open.
- The last miles are graded gravel. It is a poor road to attempt in a storm.
- There is no fuel, food or water out there. Bring everything with you from town.
- Collecting fossils on public land here is not permitted. Look, photograph, leave it.
Come for Heritage Days, and walk the grid while you are here
Main Street and the rodeo grounds · Mostly free · Late June
Huntington's own weekend is Heritage Days in late June: a rodeo on the Friday and Saturday nights, a parade down Main Street, and a community programme where the grand marshals are people everybody in the room already knows. It is a small town celebration run by the small town, and it is the single best day to understand what this place is when it is not being a trailhead.
Either side of the rodeo, the grid is worth an hour on foot. The brick homes along Main and the old blocks mostly date from a building boom between 1896 and 1916, when alfalfa seed was the cash crop and this was the commercial centre of the upper valley. The 1970s streets that fill in behind them are the power plant's building wave, thirty years newer and a different town entirely.
The memorial on the canyon road is not a photo stop
On the road out of town toward the mine stands Heroes Among Us: nine bronze relief portraits on a curved wall, sculpted by Karen Jobe Templeton, cast in Lehi and unveiled in September 2008. They are the six miners and three rescuers lost at Crandall Canyon in August 2007. It sits within sight of the middle school where families waited through those two weeks. Visitors are welcome to stop. The right register there is quiet.
Confirm the year's programme with the city
Heritage Days holds its shape from year to year but the exact dates and the running order move, and the rodeo, the parade and the community events are each organised by different people. Huntington City is the source that will actually know. Working from last year's schedule is how visitors miss a parade by an hour, and lodging in a town of nineteen hundred people is thin on that weekend.
The details
Getting there
Everything is inside the Huntington grid and walks easily once you have parked. Main Street is SR-10, a state highway, so expect a closure and a detour for the parade.
Before you go
- Main Street is a state highway. Plan for a road closure on parade morning.
- Lodging in a town this size is limited. Price, 21 miles north, is the fallback.
- Confirm the current year's dates and running order with Huntington City.
- Late June in Castle Valley is hot and dry in the afternoon. Take water and shade.
- The Crandall Canyon memorial is a place of mourning for this town. Treat it as one.
Honest about scale
What the grid supports, and what the address puts within an hour.
Huntington is a small working town with an unreasonable amount of country attached to it, and confusing the two is the quickest way to arrive disappointed. The left column is what the town itself carries. The right column is what a Huntington address puts inside an hour's drive.
| Inside Huntington | Within an hour | |
|---|---|---|
| Eating out | A couple of local places, and a pharmacy inside the grocery | Price at 25 minutes carries the fuller menu |
| Events | Heritage Days in late June, plus the school and county calendar | The county's other town celebrations, and the autumn climbing festival |
| Water | A warm 237 acre state park reservoir on the town edge | Electric Lake and the fly only creek up the canyon |
| Trails | A walking trail at the softball complex, and the park | About 15 miles of the Good Water Rim on the Swell |
| Big country | Nothing; the town is a grid on a valley floor | The Wedge, Buckhorn Wash and the bone bed, all on gravel |
| Shopping | Groceries, fuel, a pharmacy and the basics | Price, 21 miles north, for everything larger |
Neither column is a complaint. People choose Huntington for the left column's price and quiet and for the right column's public land, which is a different proposition from wanting a resort town, and the housing cost reflects exactly that difference.
Before you go
What to sort on Main Street, because four of these have nothing at the far end.
Once you leave the valley there is no shop, no pump and no tap in any direction for a long way. Every item below can be dealt with inside a few blocks of where SR-10 meets SR-31, and most of it takes ten minutes.
Sort in town
- Fuel, because there is none on SR-31, none in the Swell and none at the quarry
- Water and food for the day, at the grocery on Main Street
- Offline maps, since coverage drops out within a few miles of the valley in every direction
- A real spare and the means to fit it, before any of the four gravel days
- A paper backup of where you are going, and somebody at home who knows the plan
Check before you drive
- The monument's current day and hours, and whether the dig site enclosure has reopened
- SR-31 conditions with UDOT if there is any weather at all in a winter forecast
- Whether a forest closure order affects the canyon side roads, on 435-636-3580
- Current camping and route rules in the San Rafael Swell Recreation Area, on 435-636-3600
- The year's Heritage Days dates and running order, with Huntington City
Turn up and it is fine
- The state park on the town edge, which is five minutes from anywhere in Huntington
- The Wedge Overlook, which is free, unstaffed and rarely crowded on a weekday
- The Buckhorn Wash panel, which has a trail, a toilet and no gate
- The drive up SR-31, which is paved the whole way to Fairview
Graded gravel is not a hazard until it rains, and then it is the only hazard. The roads to the Wedge, to Buckhorn Wash and to the dinosaur quarry are all normally fine for a careful passenger car in dry conditions. Wet, the same surfaces turn greasy, the washes run, and recovery is a long way off in a place with no signal. Read the sky before you turn off the tarmac, do not enter a wash with storms building, and be willing to abandon the plan. Nothing out there is worth the tow bill.
What this list leaves out, and why
- Joe's Valley bouldering. Thousands of climbers a year come to the sandstone over the ridge near Orangeville, and an autumn festival fills the valley with them. It is a genuine eighth entry, but it belongs to the Orangeville side of the county and the season, the areas and the etiquette are more than a paragraph can carry honestly.
- The Good Water Rim trail. About fifteen miles one way along the canyon rim, and about twenty one as a loop, which is a mountain biking day rather than a stop. It lives on the Wedge page with the road and the camping rules.
- The Huntington mammoth in detail. The 1988 discovery at the reservoir at the top of SR-31 gets its own section on the canyon page, and the museum in Price that holds the remains is Price's subject rather than this town's.
- Nine Mile Canyon, the prehistoric museum, the Book Cliffs and Scofield. All of those are reached from Price, 21 miles north, and belong to that town rather than this one.
- The Museum of the San Rafael in Castle Dale and the county's other town celebrations. Ten miles south is a different town with its own calendar, and this list is Huntington's.
