2021 Christmas

Thousands of years ago, Indigenous people painted images onto these canyon walls that are still on display today, provocative, mysterious, and enduring reminders of the people who lived here long ago.

A ghost town that held steady longer than most, but finally gave up the ghost.

This gallery of prehistoric red ochre art lines the wall of a scenic segment in Utah's San Rafael Swell.

This lava formation earned its whimsical name from the log-like formation of it stones.

Largest collection of mounted dinosaur specimens in the world.

Giant, natural amphitheaters made of delicate geological formations called "hoodoos."

This rugged area of red rocks and arches is often considered one of the most beautiful places on Earth.

Few things look more out of place than the electric blue ponds in the reddish-brown desert of Utah.

The fifth-longest natural arch in the world, and the longest outside China.

One of the world’s largest collections of petroglyphs records 2,000 years of human activity.

This ghost town was once a cult-like religious utopian settlement.

Sandstone rock formations that look like they belong on the cover of a progressive rock album.

A tunnel with windows, so you don't miss out on the impressive views.

A Mars simulation in the southern Utah desert.

It would be easy to walk past this unusual piece of art and have no idea it pays tribute to the odd life of a real chicken.

Two creeks flow out of either end of this canyon in opposite directions.

This interpretive path lets you get up close and personal with dinosaur bones.

A small oasis not far from downtown Moab.

A striking, menacing sandstone peak towering above a landscape that's equal parts Mordor and the Moon.

This quiet park's strange sedimentary spires were named after Kodak's color film.

The hike through a narrow river flanked by the 2,000-foot-tall walls of Zion Canyon is one of the best in the world.

The unusual patterns in this rock formation result from two distinct modes of weathering.

A hidden garden of stones engraved with scriptures, a Joseph Smith Sphinx, all carved by one man.

Visitors to this library are in for a real-world education in modernist architecture.

It's safe—and permitted—to walk across these twin natural sandstone arches.

Come for the speed, leave in love with the desert.

A 90-foot-tall psychedelic "tree" on the side of the highway has baffled passersby for decades.

A desert settlement founded and later abandoned by Hawaiian members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Utah's Skull Valley.

A striking sculpture built to honor the women of the Lakota and Dakota Nations.

The tunnel's elegant proportions keep you snug with no claustrophobia freak-out.