The top 10 things to do in Hurricane.

Gooseberry Mesa is why riders fly into Las Vegas and drive north. It is a flat topped mesa at about 5,200 feet, laced with painted dot slickrock lines that reward balance over horsepower, with rim views that run north to the towers of Zion. The trail system has been built and refined over decades and earned National Recreation Trail status.

It is not a beginner ride, and the approach can rattle a low car. If you want something that flows instead of fights, the JEM and the Hurricane Rim loops down by the river are the friendlier famous ride, and both are covered on the mountain biking page.

One of the most visited national parks in the country is about 25 to 30 minutes from a Hurricane driveway. State Route 9 runs east through La Verkin, Virgin and Rockville to the south entrance at Springdale, and the drive itself is worth the gas even if you turn around at the gate. In season the honest advice is to go early, because the road and the shuttle lots back up by mid morning.

The park is bigger than the main canyon. The Kolob Terrace Road north of Virgin climbs into high country most visitors never touch, and the Zion Canyon shuttle is free with your entrance fee, no reservation needed. The full set of drives, including Bryce and the Grand Canyon, is on the national parks page.

Sand Mountain is the rare place where dunes and slickrock meet in one riding area, right next to the reservoir. Side by sides, quads, dirt bikes and built rigs share the sand bowls and rock ledges, and on a spring weekend the staging area sounds like a small airport. You do not need to own anything to enjoy it, because plenty of people come up just to watch a rig work a ledge.

If you plan to ride, you need a current Utah off highway vehicle registration, and the summer heat math is real: from June through August, ride in the early morning or late afternoon. The off-roading page has the registration rules and the timing.

You can tee off here in January in a windbreaker, which is the whole point of the winter season in this town. Sky Mountain is the city course in town, Copper Rock is a newer daily fee layout on the edge of town, and up on the bench above the reservoir's west shore the Sand Hollow Resort's Championship Course is a layout Golfweek keeps ranking among the country's top resort courses. The resort also runs a second, more open Links course.

Cool month tee times fill first, so book ahead when the weather turns. The golf page covers all of the courses and when to reserve.

Quail Creek is the other reservoir, tucked into the red rock hills northwest of town where the road meets the interstate, and it is the quieter of the two. Utah State Parks lists it among the warmest waters in the state, which keeps it comfortable late in the year, and it is the spot locals use for an after work kayak lap, for fishing, and for the kind of evening when the hillsides turn orange and the water goes flat as glass.

It is small enough to paddle a good portion of in an evening and close enough that you can decide to go at six and be on the water by six thirty. That is the actual luxury of living out here.

Hurricane exists because of a ditch. Starting in 1893, settlers spent about eleven years hand cutting a canal along the face of the cliffs to bring Virgin River water up onto the bench, and the orchards that followed built this town. The trail follows that canal line, and standing in a hand cut channel on the cliff face rearranges how you think about the town below.

It is a short, exposed walk with real drop offs and no shade, so the honest window is a cool morning or evening from October into May. The full menu of walks is on the best hikes page.

Peach Days is the town's big weekend, a heritage celebration around the old town square that honors the canal fed orchards this valley was built on. The full run stretches over several days in early September: displays and a quilt show, food booths, a carnival, a parade through the historic streets, a rodeo out near the airport and fireworks on closing night.

Dates and the lineup shift year to year, so check the city's calendar before planning a trip around it. Hurricane Valley Heritage Park, the pioneer museum and the historic downtown fill in the rest of the story any time of year.

A set of waterfalls dropping over black lava rock into pools in the middle of the desert, reached by a dirt road that is genuinely rough. High clearance is not a suggestion out there, and more than one rental car has come home humbled.

Earn it and you get one of the strangest, best swimming spots in Washington County. Go in spring or fall, do not go with storms building anywhere upstream, and pack out everything you carry in.

The cliffs that give the town its skyline are also the best free seat in it. The escarpment east of town is where the Colorado Plateau drops off toward the Basin and Range, and standing on that edge as the light goes low turns the whole valley, the river and the reservoirs into one long diagram of why anyone settled here.

You can reach the rim on foot from the trail system, on a bike from the Hurricane Rim route, or on four wheels up the back roads. Bring a jacket in the cool months, because the wind up there does not care what the thermometer said in town.