Dark Sky
Darkness turned out to be something you can lose, and something you can protect. Utah figured this out first: Natural Bridges became the world's first certified International Dark Sky Park in 2007, and the state now holds more certified dark-sky places than anywhere on earth — with Great Basin, just over the Nevada line, among the darkest of all. These are places where the night itself is the protected resource, kept dark on purpose. Under skies this deep, the Milky Way isn't a faint smudge; it throws a shadow.
Scenic Byway 121
Scenic Byway 12 / UT-631
S-22 (Borrego Salton Seaway)1
S-22 / CA-781
UT-242
I-40 / I-171
US-502
Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park
Two men on a rubber air mattress floated through in 1901 to prove a tunnel could be built, past a cliff that drops some 2,250 feet to the river.
Great Basin National Park
Nevada's only national park — caves below, the oldest trees on earth above, the darkest skies overhead