Walk Taylor Creek to the Double Arch Alcove
Kolob Canyons Rd, 2.1 mi up · Park entrance fee · Year round except deep snow
This is the best walk within fifteen minutes of New Harmony and it is not close. The Middle Fork of Taylor Creek runs 2.2 miles up a shaded streambed to the Double Arch Alcove, a huge undercut in the sandstone with water seeping down its back wall in black and white streaks, and the whole thing gains only about 500 feet. It crosses the creek more than a dozen times, which is the point rather than the problem.
Two homestead cabins stand on the way up. The Larson cabin comes first, built in 1930 by Gustav Larson out of white fir logs hauled in by wagon from Cedar City, at about 5,645 feet, where he spent the summers of 1930 to 1933 homesteading and raising pigs. The Fife cabin sits roughly half a mile further on. The Kolob page covers all four trails on this road.
The geology is the reason the canyon looks like that
Taylor Creek cuts straight through the Kanarra anticline, an upwarp in the rock that formed roughly 100 million years ago and runs nearly forty miles from Toquerville north to Cedar City. Only its eastern limb is still exposed; the crest and the western half were dropped out of sight by the Hurricane fault. What that means on the ground is that the strata tilt visibly as you walk, which is not something most canyon walks hand you for free.
Stop at the alcove and turn around
Past the Double Arch Alcove the route runs into a steep landslide full of loose boulders that can be knocked down onto anyone below, and the vegetation closes in. The alcove is the destination, not a waypoint. Almost everybody who gets into trouble on this trail did so in the quarter mile past the place they should have stopped.
The details
Getting there
Out SR-144 to I-15, south two exits to exit 40, then up the Kolob Canyons Road past the visitor center. The trailhead is a signed pullout on the north side at about mile 2.1.
Before you go
- Every visitor has to stop at the Kolob Canyons Visitor Center to show a pass or pay before driving the road.
- There are more than a dozen creek crossings. Wet feet are the normal outcome, not a mistake.
- The cabins are historic structures on federal ground. Look, photograph, do not enter or touch.
- There is no water on the trail and none past the visitor center. Fill up before you leave the freeway.
- In winter the shaded stretches hold ice long after the road is clear.
Drive the Kolob Canyons Road and walk out to the Timber Creek Overlook
I-15 exit 40 · Park entrance fee · Year round, snow permitting
Five miles of paved road climb from the visitor center at the freeway into a set of deep red finger canyons, ending at a picnic area and the Timber Creek Overlook trailhead. The walk from there is six tenths of a mile each way along a rocky ridge, gaining about 117 feet, and it takes half an hour to an hour depending on how long you stand at the end of it.
What you get at the top is Shuntavi Butte, the length of Timber Creek, the Kolob Terrace country behind it and the Pine Valley Mountains over your shoulder. On a clear day Mount Trumbull is visible on the Arizona Strip roughly a hundred miles away. There is no shuttle on this road and no timed entry, which is the single largest practical difference between this end of Zion and the other one.
The one trail that takes a large group
Zion caps affiliated groups at twelve people on almost everything in this section, and the Timber Creek Overlook Trail is the exception: groups over twelve are permitted here and nowhere else at Kolob. If you are travelling with a reunion, a church group or a scout troop, this is the walk that will not turn you away at the trailhead.
The road itself has a recent history
In March 2023 rangers spotted a depression in the pavement and closed the road as a precaution, and shortly afterwards it began to collapse. The rebuild started that September, excavating the unstable material and reinforcing the base to a depth of eight feet with geo grid, structural cloth and compacted soil, then repaving more than 6,000 square feet and adding ditches, gutters and curbs to move water off it. It reopened on 29 November 2023.
The details
Getting there
SR-144 east to I-15, south to exit 40, and the visitor center is right at the interchange. The scenic drive begins behind it and ends at the picnic area.
Before you go
- Restrooms are at the overlook trailhead and at the visitor center, and nowhere in between.
- No pets on the trail, which is the standard Zion rule and it is enforced here.
- The tread has steps up to eighteen inches and a few tight passages between boulders. It is short, not flat.
- The visitor center closes for an hour in the middle of the day, so time the pass purchase around it.
- Late afternoon light on the finger canyons is the reason locals treat this as an evening drive.
Take the Comanche Trail out of town along an 1860s ditch
Trailhead Rd, west end of town · Free · Best May to October
This is the town's own front door to the mountain, and the first mile of it is a history lesson. The trail leaves a Forest Service parking area at the end of Trailhead Road with an outhouse, a picnic table and an information board, follows an old dirt road, and then picks up a pioneer irrigation ditch and runs flat along it into the canyon under maples and past seasonal pools.
Keep going and it stops being flat. The canyon narrows at Comanche Spring, the grade steepens, and where the trail comes out of the canyon the old Comanche cabin appears with the whole New Harmony valley and the Kolob cliffs laid out behind it. The full run is 12.3 miles out and back with 2,554 feet of gain, ending where it meets the Summit Trail at Big Water. The trail page takes it in sections.
You do not have to do the whole thing
The best hour in the valley in October is the first flat mile and a half along the ditch and back, and it asks nothing of anybody. That stretch is why the trailhead has a picnic table. The full climb to the Summit Trail is a serious day and a completely different proposition, and the two get confused constantly because they share a car park.
Check which end you are reading about
The Forest Service's own listing for this trail gives its trailhead as the Pine Valley Recreation Area, which has been closed since the June 2025 Forsyth Fire and is expected to stay closed through the 2026 season. That is the far end of the same trail. The New Harmony trailhead is a separate access on the other side of the range. Confirm current status with the Pine Valley Ranger District rather than reading one page and assuming.
The details
Getting there
West through town on Center Street and out Trailhead Road to the signed parking area. There is a large lot, and a sign that reads Comanche Trail users park here.
Before you go
- The creeks along the route are seasonal and unreliable. Carry all your water.
- No motors. Mountain bikes and horses are legal because the trail does not enter the wilderness, though the Forest Service does not recommend it for riding.
- The cabin and the ditch works are historic. The ditch and dam are recorded archaeological sites.
- Fall colour in the maple canyon usually peaks in the first half of October and it is worth timing.
- The Public Lands Visitor Center in St. George, on 435-688-3200, is the number for current conditions.
Find the Fort Harmony site and read what the markers do and do not say
Near the I-15 exit 42 approach · Free · Year round
A monument stands in a field near the freeway approach where an adobe square 300 feet on a side once held the seat of Washington County. Fort Harmony was begun in 1854, the first adobe fort in the territory, with one story houses against a ten foot wall on the east side and two story houses against a sixteen foot wall on the west. It was the headquarters of the Mormon mission to the Lamanites and it held the county seat until 1859.
The Utah Pioneer Trails and Landmarks Association put a marker up in 1936 with members of the Parowan Stake, and the Daughters of Utah Pioneers added one later. The site went on the National Register on 16 November 1979. The Fort Harmony page covers the founding, the storm and the people, including John D. Lee.
What actually survives
Not walls. Adobe laid up without straw or hair does not survive being rained on for twenty eight days, let alone another hundred and sixty years, and what is on the ground now is a monument, some interpretive text and a field. Go for the location and the story rather than for ruins, and read the markers as artefacts of when they were written rather than as settled history.
Two towns date their founding to the same storm
When the families walked out of Fort Harmony in February 1862 they split. Most moved a short distance west onto higher ground and built New Harmony where it stands today. The rest went east over the ridge and founded Kanarraville. That is why two towns in two different counties share one founding year and one weather event, and why neither of them is where the original settlement was.
The details
Getting there
East out of town on SR-144 toward the freeway. The monument sits off the road on the valley floor; watch for the marker rather than for a building.
Before you go
- The surrounding ground is private and working. Read the markers from the pullout and do not walk out into fields.
- There is no visitor center, no toilet, no water and no staff. It is a monument in a field.
- Two founding dates circulate for the fort, 9 May and 20 May 1854. Sources genuinely differ.
- The town cemetery in New Harmony holds many of the families who walked out of here, and it is worth the second stop.
- Nothing here is lit. This is a daylight visit.
Climb Mount Baldy by the Anderson Valley Trail
Same trailhead as the Comanche Trail · Free · June to October
The other trail out of the New Harmony trailhead is the serious one. The Anderson Valley Trail, Dixie National Forest trail 3022, climbs from the valley floor into the Pine Valley Mountain Wilderness, and the route to Mount Baldy runs about 11.1 miles out and back with 3,641 feet of gain. That is a full day with a real altitude profile, on a mountain that is one of the largest laccoliths in the world.
It is a wilderness trail in the proper sense: no motors, no bikes, no signage beyond the minimum, and a trailhead that does not tell you how far you have to go. The reward is the east face of the range from inside it rather than from the valley, and a summit view that takes in the whole Kolob country you drove past to get here.
The range holds the high ground for the whole county
Signal Peak, the high point of the Pine Valley Mountains at about 10,370 feet, sits south along the crest, and the Summit Trail runs roughly eighteen miles along the top of the range with at least eight other trails climbing to join it. The Comanche Trail is one of them. From New Harmony you are on the eastern approach, which is the quiet side; the Whipple and Browns Point routes leave from Pine Valley on the far side of the mountain.
Season is not a suggestion at this elevation
The trailhead is at about 5,500 feet and the destination is well over nine thousand. Snow lingers on the upper mountain into June in a normal year and returns in October, and the shoulder seasons are when people get caught out. Ask the Pine Valley Ranger District what the snowline is doing before committing to a summit day rather than reading a trip report from August.
The details
Getting there
The same parking area as the Comanche Trail at the end of Trailhead Road. The two routes diverge shortly after the lot, so read the sign rather than following the first boot track.
Before you go
- This is designated wilderness. No bikes, no motors, and group size and camping rules apply.
- Carry every litre of water you plan to drink. The seasonal creeks cannot be counted on.
- There is no cell coverage on most of the route and none at all up against the mountain.
- Afternoon thunderstorms are a real summer hazard on an exposed crest. Start early and be off the top by early afternoon.
- Fire restrictions apply on the Dixie National Forest through most summers and they change without much notice.
Spend an hour in the town's own 40 acres
Comanche Nature Park and the town park · Free · Year round
New Harmony owns a 40 acre tract of ground west of town that it runs as Comanche Nature Park, with hiking trails and picnic tables on it and nothing else. It exists because the county's general plan pushed the town for years to take up an isolated parcel of Bureau of Land Management ground near the town limits under a recreation and public purpose arrangement, and eventually that happened.
The other civic ground is the town park beside the fire station, which has modern and traditional playground equipment, horseshoe pits, a baseball backstop and picnic tables, and can be booked for events through the town clerk. Between the two, a town of 236 people runs more public open space per resident than most cities in the state.
The library is the third piece and it surprises people
The Washington County Library runs a branch at 34 South 2900 East, one of eight in the county system, with a makerspace, a book club and rooms that can be booked. A town this size having a full county branch rather than a box of donated paperbacks in a town hall is unusual, and it is one of the quiet reasons the valley works for people who work from home.
The residents were not unanimous about trails
When the county surveyed the valley for its general plan update, 61.5 percent supported developing a system of walking and bicycle trails and 41 percent did not, with several respondents saying the existing road system was adequate for the purpose. Interest in adding equestrian routes ran alongside it. That split is worth knowing about before assuming a trail network is coming.
The details
Getting there
Both are inside the town. The nature park is on the western edge toward the forest, the town park sits beside the fire station on Center Street, and the library is a short way east.
Before you go
- There is no staffed facility at the nature park. Take your rubbish out with you.
- Reservations for the town park go through the town clerk rather than an online system.
- Town council meets the first Wednesday of the month at 7:30 in the fire station, and the planning commission the fourth.
- The cemetery keeps a directory on the shed for anyone tracing a family through the valley.
- Library hours are county hours, not town hours. Check the county library's page rather than the town's.
Walk to Kolob Arch from Lee Pass
Lee Pass trailhead, Kolob Canyons Rd · Park entrance fee · Spring and autumn
This is the biggest day anywhere near New Harmony. Kolob Arch spans about 287 feet, which makes it the second longest arch in the world behind Landscape Arch, and it sits seven miles up the La Verkin Creek Trail from the Lee Pass trailhead. Fourteen miles round trip and roughly a thousand feet of gain, and the catch is that the elevation runs the wrong way: you descend on the way in and climb on the way out, when you are tired.
Most people who do it well split it over two days. There are thirteen designated campsites along La Verkin Creek, and a Zion wilderness permit is required to use any of them. Those permits are reserved online and collected at the Zion Canyon Visitor Center, not at Kolob, which is a forty mile detour if you find out at the trailhead.
The permit is not issued at this end of the park
The Kolob Canyons Visitor Center does not issue wilderness permits. That single administrative fact has ruined more Kolob backpacking plans than weather has. Reserve online in advance and collect the permit at the main visitor center in Springdale the day before or the day of, and build that into the trip rather than discovering it on the morning.
The arch itself is a viewpoint, not a destination you stand under
There is no way to walk up to Kolob Arch. The trail reaches a viewpoint across the drainage from it and that is the end of the line, which catches people who have Arches National Park in their head. It is still worth the fourteen miles, but adjust the expectation before you set off.
The details
Getting there
Up the Kolob Canyons Road past the Taylor Creek trailhead. Lee Pass is a signed trailhead on the left before the road makes its final climb to the picnic area.
Before you go
- Zion caps wilderness group size at twelve people.
- Permits are reserved online and picked up at the Zion Canyon Visitor Center in Springdale, not at Kolob.
- You lose elevation on the way in, which means the hard climbing happens at the end of the day.
- There is no potable water past the visitor center. Treat creek water and carry the means to do it.
- Check current conditions with the park. Flash flooding and trail damage close sections of this route periodically.
Stand outside after dark
Anywhere in the valley · Free · Year round, best in winter
The night sky over this valley is genuinely dark, and it is dark for structural reasons rather than administrative ones. There is no metro glow within about thirty miles in either direction, the town runs to a couple of hundred people, and the surrounding ground is national forest, Bureau of Land Management wilderness and national park in every direction but the freeway.
Be clear about what that is and is not. New Harmony holds no dark sky certification and no lighting ordinance. What it has is elevation, distance and very few lights, and on a moonless night in the valley that turns out to be enough. Winter is the best of it, because the air is dry and cold and the nights are long.
Where to stand
The valley floor works anywhere the freeway is out of sight, and the western side of the valley toward the forest is better because the mountain blocks whatever comes up from St. George. The Comanche trailhead parking area is a reasonable spot with room to park and no lights, though it is Forest Service ground rather than a designated viewing site, so treat it accordingly.
The certified places are elsewhere on this corridor
Springdale holds an International Dark Sky Community certification, Cedar Breaks is a certified dark sky park, and Zion holds its own designation under a separate programme. New Harmony is on none of those lists and has never claimed to be. If a listing tells you otherwise, it is confusing this valley with one of its neighbours.
The details
Getting there
Nowhere in particular. Get away from the interstate corridor on the eastern edge of the valley and let your eyes adjust for twenty minutes.
Before you go
- New Harmony is not a certified dark sky place and does not claim to be. It is simply remote and high.
- Winter nights at 5,300 feet get properly cold. Dress for standing still, not for walking.
- Most of the good ground is private or agricultural. Park where you are entitled to and stay off fields.
- The moon phase matters more than the location. Check it before driving up for this alone.
- There is no organised programme, no ranger talk and no facility. This is standing in the dark, which is the point.
Two entrances to the same park
Kolob and the main canyon are not the same day out.
People book a Zion trip and then discover there are two front doors forty miles apart, run on completely different systems. From New Harmony the near one is ten minutes away and the far one is nearly an hour.
| Kolob Canyons, exit 40 | Main canyon, Springdale | |
|---|---|---|
| From New Harmony | About 10 miles, 12 to 15 minutes | About 60 miles, an hour or more |
| Shuttle | None. You drive the scenic road yourself | Mandatory on the canyon road in season |
| Timed entry | None | Permits and lotteries on some trails |
| Scenic drive | 5 miles to a picnic area and an overlook | 6 miles of canyon, shuttle only in season |
| Crowd | Rarely at capacity | The busiest section of the park |
| Wilderness permits | Not issued here | Issued at the Zion Canyon Visitor Center |
The entrance fee is the same pass and it works at both. What differs is everything about how you move around once you are through the gate.
Before you go
What to pack, and what to check first.
Most of what goes wrong on a New Harmony day is one of two things: arriving at Kolob without a pass or a permit, or treating a 5,300 foot valley against a wilderness like a desert town half an hour away.
For a day at Kolob
- A park pass, or the means to buy one at the visitor center on the way in
- Shoes you are willing to soak, because Taylor Creek crosses its own creek repeatedly
- All the water for the day, since there is none past the visitor center
- A wilderness permit collected in Springdale if you intend to camp on La Verkin Creek
- A plan that does not involve a dog, which is not permitted on the trails
Check before you go
- Kolob Canyons Road status, which can close after heavy snow
- Pine Valley Ranger District conditions, because a fire closure covers the far side of this range
- Current Zion entrance fees, including the non resident surcharge introduced in 2026
- The snowline on the mountain before committing to any wilderness summit day
- Dixie National Forest fire restrictions in summer, which reach the trailheads
Show up and it is fine
- The first flat mile of the Comanche Trail, on any decent morning
- The Fort Harmony monument, which asks nothing but daylight
- Comanche Nature Park and the town park
- The valley after dark, which needs only a moonless night
The exit climb out of Kolob Arch is where this list gets people into trouble. The La Verkin Creek Trail loses elevation on the way in, so the fourteen mile round trip ends with a climb at the point in the day when water is short and the sun is on the slope. Turn it into an overnight with a permit, or start it at first light in spring or autumn and treat summer as off limits for the day version.
What this list leaves out, and why
- Kanarra Falls. It is fifteen minutes north and it is genuinely close, but it is a ticketed hike run by the Town of Kanarraville and the Kanarraville companion covers the permit system, the cap and the ladder properly.
- Pine Valley village, the reservoir and the Whipple Trail. That is the far side of this range, reached from Central rather than from here, and the recreation area has been closed since the 2025 Forsyth Fire.
- Zion's main canyon. It is an hour away, the shuttle and the trails are Springdale's ground on this site, and a New Harmony list that leads with Angels Landing would be a list about somewhere else.
- Cedar Breaks and Brian Head. Both are inside an hour, both are covered from the towns that own them, and both belong on a drive time list rather than a things to do list for a valley in Washington County.
- A restaurant guide. There is no restaurant inside the town limits, so anything printed here would be a list of places in Cedar City or on the freeway.
