Utah - America's Most Scenic Destination

Is this title and sub-heading accurate?
Let the debate begin.

We'll start by qualifying a few details.

1- We're talking about the contiguous 48 states plus Alaska and the islands of Hawaii. Alaska, with its massive landmass has a lot to offer, but still may not compete with Utah, for the density of scenic diversity. Hawaii with its string of islands that include scenic coastline, waterfalls, volcanoes, and lush forests in a smaller space, may be a strong contender but when it comes to the scenic diversity and density then southern Utah with its unique scenic land formations, rivers, lakes, waterfalls, volcanic cinder cones, mountains, pinnacles, plateaus, and scenic byways and backways, it's hard to beat.

2- As the author of this information I've personally visited most of the scenic states in the U.S., including Alaska, and have made 15+ visits to the state of Hawaii and spent time exploring the Big Island, Maui, Kauai, and Oahu. I've also lived in California, Utah, Wyoming, and Michigan and have spent thousands of hours in southern Utah professionally exploring, guiding, photographing, shooting video, and mapping trails for hiking, biking, horseback, and off-road. My research may have some bias but it does not come without some significant experience, and a healthy dose of perspective.

Is Utah America's Best and Most Diverse Scenic Destination? Where's The Evidence?

What states may be competitors and why?

As we consider sheer unique scenery some would mention Michigan, Maine, and Florida, but when it comes to natural scenic diversity it's the states in the west that are the biggest contenders.

We chose these states based on the their total number of federally designated national parks, monuments, recreation areas, and scenic roads.

Next we calculated the square mileage of each state, and divided this space by the number of federally designated attractions.

Of these we took a look at the National Park Service maps. Using the exact same size scale we visually reviewed maps of sections of geographic sections of Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico, Washington, and of course – Utah. We observed that Utah appeared to have the highest number of these attractions per square mile.

While Utah is shown to have 85,000 square miles of terrain, the most unique and concentrated scenery in Utah is found with six southernmost counties of Utah and the square mileage of these counties totals approximately 26,000, or less than 1/3 of the total land mass of Utah. Bottom line is it does appear statistically and visually that this section of southern Utah is the most dense collection of world class scenic attractions in at least the lower 48 states.

Arizona National Attractions

California National Attractions

Colorado National Attractions

New Mexico National Attractions

Washington National Attractions

Utah National Attractions

What are these Southern Utah attractions?

For national parks there are five that are within a few hours of each other; Zion, Bryce, Capitol Reef, Canyonlands, and Arches National Parks. We should note that Nevada, Colorado, and Arizona each have national parks in close proximity to this part of Utah. The Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument, and Bears Ears National Monument are two of the largest national monuments in the lower 48 states, and there are other scenic national monuments such as Cedar Breaks. Don't forget that Monument Valley Tribal Park which includes the iconic scenery found in scores of western and modern movies is also predominantly within the borders of Utah.

But what about an ocean?

What about Scenic Roads, you know scenic byways, and backways?

This area of southern Utah is filled with scenic byways and backways, the most famous of which is the All American Road – Scenic Byway 12, rated by Car & Driver magazine as one of America's Top 10.  Scenic Highway 24 runs west to east through Capitol Reef National Park and passes many other scenic attractions before it arrives in Hanksville, Utah.

What about scenic rivers?

The Green River comes into this area, from Wyoming, and the Colorado River, and San Juan River flow into this area from the state of Colorado and that is what fills the convoluted canyons of Glen Canyon and creates Lake Powell. The Colorado River continues through the Grand Canyon and continues on to California and the Pacific Ocean.  Add to this the Virgin River which has carved the main canyon of Utah's Zion National Park, and the Sevier River which flows north off of the Markagunt Plateau and eventually into the west desert of Utah.

Add State Parks

There is so much scenery in this region that there are seven scenic state parks in this southern Utah region; Snow Canyon State Park, Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park, Goosenecks State Park, Dead Horse Point State Park, Goblin Valley State Park, Kodachrome Basin State Park, Escalante Petrified Forest State Park. Each of these Utah state parks are geologically and visually different in nature.

Non Officially Designated Scenery

Beyond the national and state designations this region of Utah is filled with national forest and Bureau of Land Management terrain. So much so, that this region is primarily managed by federal agencies. This does not account for the non-designated scenic formation or areas that include names such as Factory Butte, Moonscape, Bentonite Hills (Mars), The Dirty Devil River Basin, Little Egypt, Devil's Garden, Rainbow Bridge, Paria Canyon-Vermilion Cliffs Wilderness, The San Rafael Swell and Little Wild Horse Canyon within The Swell.  Add to this places such as Boulder Mountain with its 80 lakes on the highest forested plateau in all of North America.

Slot Canyons
This says nothing of the scores of slot canyons that are likely more prominent in southern Utah than anywhere else on planet earth. In some locations visitors may come across terrain with a new slot canyon found every half mile along a single sandstone ridgeline.

Natural Bridges and Arches
Along with the over 300 arch formations found within Arches National Park there are copious amounts of arch formations, carved by wind, found throughout the entire region.  On top of this there are natural rock bridges, similar to arches but are carved by water, that dot the landscape.  All of America's largest natural rock arches and bridges are found in southern Utah, measuring from 200' to nearly 300' in length.

Last Explored Region

This area is so filled with diverse rugged and deep canyons and mountains that early Spanish explorers in 1776 found it difficult to travel through. In fact this is the last explored area of the lower 48 states.

In 1870's John Wesley Powell explored the Colorado River region and encountered significant difficulties with the rough terrain. Early pioneers who attempted to traverse this region in the famous

Hole In The Rock Expedition found that there six week intended journey was drawn out to six-months because of the unexpected obstacles they encountered.

State Boundaries

When the boundaries for the state of Utah were created, straight lines were drawn across the bottom of the state and these arbitrary lines left an area of Arizona, above the Grand Canyon, in a place of limbo where Arizona officials are not easily able to access. Bottom line the entire area from the Grand Canyon north rim to the Utah border, should have been part of the state of Utah. The close proximity of the Grand Canyon north rim, to these other areas, pushed the scenic diversity score even higher.

Who Concurs?

A few years back I worked as a location scout for a nature film-maker from Germany, Gogol Lobmayr, who has filmed every major scenic location in the world, and he has stated to me, “I've filmed everywhere in the world, and this area of Utah has the most world-class scenery in a close proximity!”

So what about "Best In The World"?

Is southern Utah the greatest concentration of natural scenic wonders in the world? I spent eight years of my youth in New Zealand and, by the time you read this, I will have spent another two-weeks in New Zealand. I know a bunch of Kiwis who'd like to argue that they're homeland is the winner. My German film-maker friend, who has filmed everywhere, still says that this area of southern Utah is number one.

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