Swim in the pool the Cottams dug out of a lava canyon
287 E Veyo Resort Rd · Day pass · Roughly April to October
The Veyo Pool is not a municipal swimming pool that happens to be in a pretty spot. It is a hole in a black basalt canyon that one family found a warm spring in and then spent three years building into a pool, opening it to the public about eighteen months later at fifteen cents a head. For many years afterwards it was the only public swimming pool in Washington County, which is the actual reason a town of this size has a name people recognise.
The water is spring fed and the canyon runs a dozen or so degrees cooler than the valley, so a July afternoon here is a genuinely different proposition from a July afternoon in St. George. The canyon page covers the history, the climbing above it and how the two seasons work.
What the day pass actually gets you
One pass covers the whole canyon: the pool, the climbing park, the creek, the courts and the picnic ground. That is unusual, and it is the reason a family with one swimmer, one climber and one child hunting crawdads can all be happy at the same address without three separate tickets.
The crawdads are real, and they are the point for some people
The creek through the canyon holds crawdads and catching them is an organised activity here rather than a happy accident, with supplies available on site. It is the thing children remember about the place long after they have forgotten the water temperature.
The details
Getting there
Turn east off SR-18 in the middle of town onto Veyo Resort Road and follow it down into the canyon. It is signed, and the descent is short.
Before you go
- No animals are permitted in the canyon apart from service animals. Plan around that before you load the car.
- Everyone signs a waiver at the desk, and anyone under 18 needs a parent present to sign it.
- Hours change between the shoulder season and high summer, and Friday and Saturday evenings run later. Check before you drive up.
- There is a grill on site, so lunch is solved without leaving.
- It is a canyon with a creek in it. Shoes that can get wet are worth more here than sandals.
Climb the basalt in Crawdad Canyon
Same canyon, above the water · Day pass · Year round by reservation
The walls above the pool carry 234 bolted routes from 5.6 to 5.13, on solid basalt up to about 85 feet, and every one of them has a small brass plaque at its base giving the name, the grade and the climber who first went up it. That is not a normal thing to find at a swimming hole, and it is why people who have never heard of Veyo have heard of Crawdad Canyon.
It is privately owned, which cuts both ways. Access costs a day pass and comes with rules, but the routes are maintained, the approach is about four minutes from the car, and there is shade and moving water at the bottom of the wall in the middle of a Southern Utah summer.
Bring your own everything
There is no gear to rent or buy on the property and no guiding service. Rope, draws, harness and shoes all come with you, and climbers sign in at the front desk in addition to the waiver everyone signs. If you are new to sport climbing this is not the place to start from scratch on your own.
The season is longer than the pool's
The pool closes at the end of October and the climbing park does not. Outside the summer season the canyon runs by reservation, arranged ahead by phone or email rather than by turning up. Autumn and spring are the better climbing months anyway, since the canyon holds shade and the basalt is unpleasant to touch in August afternoon sun.
The details
Getting there
The same entrance as the pool, off Veyo Resort Road. Climbers check in at the desk, then walk in along the creek to the wall.
Before you go
- All gear is your own. There is nothing on site to rent or buy.
- Book ahead for anything outside the summer season rather than assuming the gate is open.
- Routes are graded on the plaques at the base, which makes route finding unusually easy for an outdoor crag.
- The canyon is cooler than the rim but it still faces the sun for part of the day. Morning is kinder in summer.
- Punch passes exist and are worth asking about if you expect to come back more than twice.
Walk up the Veyo Volcano
SR-18 pullout, ~1.5 miles south · Free · Best October to April
The cinder cone standing over the highway south of town is the reason the ground here is black, and you can walk up it in under an hour. There is a large pullout on the highway at its foot, a gate that is not locked, and after that no trail at all: you pick the east ridge and go up about six hundred feet of loose cinder to a flat summit at roughly 5,239 feet with a survey benchmark on it.
The rock underfoot is worth stopping for. Much of it is pumice light enough to float in water, which is a strange thing to be holding while looking out over a valley of alfalfa and juniper. The volcano page covers the geology and what black ground means once you own some of it.
It will not erupt again, and that is not optimism
Cinder cones are monogenetic. They build in a single eruption and then they are finished, permanently, which is why nobody in this valley thinks about the mountain in their back yard the way people think about a live volcano. What is under Veyo is a closed chapter of a much older volcanic field.
Close the gate
The access crosses working ground and the gate at the pullout is there for a reason. Close it behind you both ways. That single habit is the difference between an access that stays open and one that quietly stops being available, and it is the only thing anybody here would ask of you.
The details
Getting there
South on SR-18 from the crossroads. There is a large pullout on the east side of the highway at the foot of the cone, with a gate just north of it.
Before you go
- There is no trail, no water, no toilet and no shade anywhere on the walk.
- The surface is loose cinder. It is a straightforward walk in boots and a miserable one in flip flops.
- Close the gate behind you in both directions.
- It is steep enough that most people find the descent harder on the knees than the climb was on the lungs.
- Do it early. This is a slope with a black surface and no shade, which is a bad combination after about nine in the morning from May onward.
Buy a pie at Veyo Pies
24 S Main St · Retail · Most of the year, seven days
The bakery on Main Street is the reason a good share of Utah can find Veyo on a map. It grew out of the old Veyo Merc, where Evelyn Daniels started baking pies to bring people through the door of the store she and her husband ran, and it has since collected a Best Pies in Utah nod from Salt Lake Magazine. There is a pie on the board named after the volcano next door.
It runs seven days a week for most of the year, Monday to Saturday from mid morning to early evening and shorter on Sundays, and it closes for a week after Thanksgiving plus Christmas Day and New Year's Day. Not everything on the menu is baked every day, so if you are driving up for a specific pie, call first or order it a day ahead.
Where to eat it
There is nowhere better than the tailgate. The park at the east end of town has shade and tables, the pullout at the volcano has a view, and the canyon has a grill of its own if you are already paying to be down there. What there is not, anywhere in Veyo, is a full grocery store, so treat this as the town's one retail food stop rather than a first course.
The pie shake question
The grill down at the pool blends pie into milkshakes during the season, which is the collision of the town's two best known assets and is exactly as good as it sounds. It is a seasonal offering at a paid gate, though, so it is not a substitute for the bakery on a Tuesday in February.
The details
Getting there
On SR-18 in the centre of Veyo, on the west side of the road. Parking is in front and it fills on summer weekends.
Before you go
- Ring ahead for a specific pie. The daily bake is a subset of the menu.
- Larger and specialty orders want at least a business day's notice.
- It closes for a week after Thanksgiving, on Christmas Day and on New Year's Day.
- Summer Saturdays put a queue out the door, because the pool traffic and the highway traffic arrive at the same time.
- There is no full grocery in Veyo. If you need real supplies they are down in St. George.
Fish or camp at Baker Dam Reservoir
BLM ground, north off SR-18 · Camping fee · Open year round
Five minutes north of town, Baker Dam Reservoir sits in a shallow bowl with the Pine Valley Mountains behind it, on Bureau of Land Management ground. There is an eighteen site campground, vault toilets, no drinking water, and rainbow and brown trout stocked by the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources. Sites are reservable ahead through the federal system, and stays are capped at fourteen days.
The dam is not decoration. It was built to stabilise the irrigation supply this valley had been drawing out of the Santa Clara since the first homesteads, and part of the arrangement behind it involved water for power generation in exchange for maintaining the ditch. Every green field you drive past between here and town is downstream of it.
What it is good for
Trout from the bank or a small craft, an easy overnight that is twenty minutes from a metro and feels an hour further, and a shoreline that on a spring weekday can be entirely yours. Spring and autumn fish better than the middle of summer, and the whole area stays open through the winter.
What it is not
It is not Sand Hollow and it is not Gunlock. There is no marina, no swim beach, no potable water and no hookups, and the reservoir is small enough that a busy holiday weekend feels busy. Bring water in, take rubbish out, and treat it as a quiet fishing reservoir rather than a boating destination.
The details
Getting there
North on SR-18 from the Veyo crossroads and then east on the signed reservoir road. The last stretch is short and any car manages it.
Before you go
- There is no potable water at the campground. Carry everything you will drink.
- Sites are reservable through recreation.gov well ahead, and the 14 day stay limit is enforced.
- Check current Utah Division of Wildlife Resources rules and stocking reports before planning a trip around a species.
- Vault toilets only, no hookups and no dump station.
- Wind comes up in the afternoon here more often than the morning forecast suggests.
Ride the paved path from Veyo to Central
Beside SR-18, north from town · Free · Year round
This is the newest thing in Veyo and the least likely. A twelve foot wide paved multiuse path now runs six miles along the east side of SR-18 from town up to Central, built with county tourism funding alongside a highway widening project and open since late 2024. Bikes, runners, walkers and the occasional pair of rollerblades all use it.
It is worth knowing what it replaced, which was nothing. Before this there was no way to travel between the two communities except in the traffic lane of a highway that carries thousands of vehicles a day. Six miles of separated pavement in a valley of a few hundred people is a genuinely large piece of infrastructure.
The gradient is the catch
Central sits higher than Veyo, so the ride out is uphill and the ride back is not. That makes it a very pleasant out and back for anybody who would rather do their climbing first, and a slightly demoralising one for anybody who does it the other way by accident.
The part locals find funny
When the county surveyed this community for its general plan, residents were asked whether they wanted a system of walking and bicycle trails. Seventy one percent said no, and a large majority said the existing roads were adequate. About fourteen years later the path was built anyway, with tourism money, and it gets used every day.
The details
Getting there
Pick it up beside the highway at the north end of town and follow it. It stays on the east side of SR-18 the whole way to Central.
Before you go
- It parallels a highway. It is separated, but it is not quiet.
- There is no water and no shade for the whole six miles.
- Central is uphill from Veyo. Plan the direction accordingly.
- There is nothing at the Central end laid on for path users, so carry what you need for the round trip.
- Early morning and evening are the sensible windows from May through September.
Drive the county road west to Gunlock
West out of the crossroads · Free · Year round
One county road leaves Veyo heading west, drops off the bench and follows the Santa Clara down to Gunlock, a settlement founded in 1857 and named for a gunsmith. Carry on past the reservoir and the road comes out at Shivwits on the old highway, where a left turn takes you back to Santa Clara and St. George. It is paved the whole way and it is a better drive than the highway.
This was the through route before SR-18 was pushed over the Diamond Valley bench, and long before either of them, this drainage was the way the Old Spanish Trail came through. The Gunlock road page takes it properly.
Where the water page lives
Gunlock Reservoir is a Utah state park and it belongs to the water half of this region rather than to the road. The falls that appear below the dam in some spring runoff years are covered on the Ivins water guide, which owns the reservoir and its waterfalls, and the road from the south is on the Santa Clara old highway page. What Veyo has is the north end and the descent.
The loop, if you have the afternoon
Veyo to Gunlock to Shivwits to Santa Clara and back up SR-18 is somewhere around fifty miles and takes about an hour and a half without stops. Done clockwise from Veyo you get the canyon descent in the morning light and the climb back up the highway with the cone in front of you, which is the better way round.
The details
Getting there
West at the only real intersection in Veyo, signed for Gunlock. The road is county maintained, two lanes, and posted at 25 through the residential stretch.
Before you go
- There are no services between Veyo and the old highway. Fuel in town or in St. George.
- Cell coverage thins in the canyon sections.
- The road is somebody's front yard for the first mile. The 25 limit is not decorative.
- Gunlock State Park charges a day use fee if you stop at the water.
- Watch for livestock and for gravel on the bends after storms.
Find both bridges over the Santa Clara
SR-18 milepost 19.7 · Free · Year round
It takes ten minutes and it explains the town. The steel arch carrying SR-18 over the Santa Clara River in the middle of Veyo went in in 1957 and has been determined eligible for the National Register. Just upstream of it, the abutments of the 1921 bridge it replaced are still standing, along with a pipe across the river.
That earlier bridge is the reason Main Street exists. When it was built the main road was moved from east of the settlement to straight through the centre of it, and every business in Veyo has been strung along that line ever since. The bridge page covers both crossings and the fatigue cracks that put the current one on a weight limit in 2025.
Look, do not linger on the deck
This is a working state highway carrying around four thousand vehicles a day, currently down to a single signalled lane. Look at it from the shoulder, from the canyon road, or from the pool side. Standing on the bridge itself to take a photograph is a bad idea in a way that should not need explaining.
What the canyon looks like from up there
The arch spans the same basalt gorge the pool sits in, a few hundred yards downstream of it, which is the clearest available demonstration of what the river has been doing to this lava flow. From the rim you can see the black rock walls the climbing routes are bolted into.
The details
Getting there
The bridge is on the highway through the centre of Veyo. View it from the shoulder or from the canyon road down toward the pool.
Before you go
- Traffic on the bridge is under single lane signal control and has been since early 2025.
- Do not stop on the deck. There is nowhere to pull over on it.
- The old abutments sit on private and rough ground. Look from a distance.
- The canyon below is steep sided basalt. Keep back from the edge, particularly with children.
- Check current UDOT status before assuming both lanes are open.
Two reservoirs, two different days
Baker Dam and Gunlock ask for different afternoons.
Veyo sits between two bodies of water that people constantly confuse. One is five minutes north on federal ground, the other twenty minutes west and run by the state, and choosing wrongly is the most common way to waste a Saturday out here.
| Baker Dam, north | Gunlock, west | |
|---|---|---|
| From Veyo | About 5 miles, under 10 minutes | About 12 to 15 miles, roughly 20 minutes |
| Managed by | Bureau of Land Management | Utah State Parks |
| Camping | 18 sites, reservable, no potable water | Developed state park camping |
| Best for | Trout, a quiet evening, an easy overnight | Boats, paddling and a bigger day out |
| Cost | Free day use, fee to camp | State park day use fee |
The Gunlock reservoir and the waterfalls that appear below it in some runoff years are covered properly on the Ivins water guide. What is on this list is the road and the reservoir as Veyo reaches them.
Before you go
What to pack, and what to check first.
Most of what goes wrong on a Veyo day is one of two things: assuming the pool is open because it is warm out, or assuming a place this close to St. George has the services St. George does.
For a day in the canyon
- Shoes that can get wet, because there is a creek in the bottom of it
- Your own climbing gear, all of it, if that is why you are coming
- A plan for the dog, since animals other than service animals are not admitted
- Cash or card for the day pass, and a waiver signature for everyone in the car
- A layer for the evening, because the canyon cools off fast
Check before you go
- The pool's current season, hours and rate, direct from the resort
- Whether the pie you are driving up for is being baked that day
- Baker Dam site availability on recreation.gov before assuming a walk up
- Current UDOT status on the arch bridge, which has been under lane control since 2025
- Fire restrictions in summer, which reach the campgrounds and the back roads
Show up and it is fine
- The volcano, on any cool morning
- The drive west to Gunlock and back
- The paved path north, in either direction
- The two bridges, from the shoulder
There is no shade and no water on the volcano, and the slope is black. A cinder cone in full sun behaves like a radiator, and the loose surface makes the descent slower than the climb. Do it early or do it in the cool half of the year, carry more water than a mile of walking suggests, and turn around rather than push on if the footing feels wrong.
What this list leaves out, and why
- Snow Canyon State Park. It is a short run south and it is genuinely close, but the park and its trails belong to Ivins, which approaches them from its own side and covers them properly.
- The Gunlock waterfalls. They appear below the dam only in some strong runoff years, they are Ivins ground on this site, and nobody should drive anywhere expecting them.
- Pine Valley and the recreation area up that road. The 2025 Forsyth Fire and the flooding after it closed the area, and it is expected to stay closed through the whole 2026 season.
- A restaurant guide. Outside the bakery and the grill in the canyon, food in Veyo turns over, and printing names here would be stale before this page is next revisited.
- The cemetery and the park at the east end of town. Both are real and both are worth a walk, but they are civic ground rather than an outing, and they belong on the mover page.
