Activity

Swimming

25 destinations along 22 roads

Water is scarce enough out here that finding it is half the pleasure — a reservoir gone turquoise against the desert, a hot spring at the end of a dirt road, a green pool at the foot of a slot canyon. Almost none of it is lifeguarded, most of it is colder or deeper than it looks, and the prettiest slot pools are exactly where a flash flood would funnel. Check the upstream weather, know your exit, and then enjoy the rarest thing in this country: a place to get wet.

Scenic Byway 122

Lower Calf Creek Falls

Escalante

A 126-foot waterfall hidden in a desert canyon

Upper Calf Creek Falls

Escalante

A remote 88-foot cascade reached by a rugged trail

CO-141

Poudre Canyon

Fort Collins

Colorado's only wild and scenic river, named for buried gunpowder in a story nobody can date, and burned along its length in 2020.

Nebo Loop Road (FR-015)1

Payson Lakes

Payson

Three alpine lakes in the pines, twelve miles up Payson Canyon

SR-171

Soap Lake

A mineral lake at the foot of the Grand Coulee that drew health seekers by the thousand, and whose older name, Smokiam, the town declined to give back.

SR-21 (Ponderosa Pine Scenic Byway)1

Kirkham Hot Springs

Lowman

Hot water pours off a ledge into pools at the edge of the South Fork Payette, a staircase down from the highway.

NV-281

Sand Harbor

Incline Village

The crown of Lake Tahoe's Nevada shore—car-sized granite boulders standing in water so clear the boats above them seem to float on air, on a beach the Washoe kept for thousands of summers

US-301

Lava Hot Springs

The pools belong to the state because the springs left the Fort Hall Reservation and Congress handed them to Idaho in 1902.

I-401

Blue Hole

Santa Rosa

A bell-shaped artesian spring in Santa Rosa, 81 feet deep and a steady 61 or 62 degrees, where divers from across the region learn to dive at altitude.

US-401

Jordanelle State Park

Heber City

A sapphire reservoir nestled between the Wasatch and Uinta mountains

I-80 / Donner Pass Road1

Donner Memorial State Park

Truckee

Where the Donner Party spent the winter of 1846, marked by cabin stone and a monument built to a remembered snow depth.

CA-891

Emerald Bay State Park

South Lake Tahoe

A glacial fjord on Tahoe's west shore with the lake's only island and a Scandinavian house at the water.

SR-89A1

Oak Creek Canyon

Sedona

The switchback drive from red rock to ponderosa on State Route 89A

US-892

Bear Lake

Garden City

The Caribbean of the Rockies — a turquoise lake straddling the Utah-Idaho border

Palisade State Park

Sterling

A pioneer-built lake turned central Utah's favorite state park

US-931

Lake Mead National Recreation Area

Boulder City

The largest reservoir in the country — and its most legible drought gauge

UT-1011

Hyrum State Park

Hyrum

A family-friendly reservoir at the mouth of Blacksmith Fork Canyon

SR-1381

Lake Gregory

Crestline

A New Deal dam built by a Redlands orange grower, for the opposite reason to every other lake on this mountain.

UT-1501

Mirror Lake

Kamas

A pristine alpine lake reflecting the Uinta peaks like glass

SR-1551

Steamboat Rock

Electric City

An 800-foot basalt butte that geologists read as the remains of a waterfall twice the height of Dry Falls, now almost an island in a reservoir pumped up from the Columbia.

US-1912

Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area

Manila

A turquoise reservoir carved into blazing red canyon walls

Steinaker State Park

Vernal

A warm-water reservoir popular for swimming in the desert heat

US-3801

Bottomless Lakes State Park

Roswell

Nine sinkhole lakes under red bluffs east of Roswell, named by vaqueros whose ropes never touched bottom, and set aside in 1933 as New Mexico's first state park.

Homestead Drive1

Homestead Crater

Midway

A hidden geothermal spring inside a 55-foot limestone dome

Tony Grove Road1

Tony Grove Lake

Logan

A glacial alpine lake at 8,100 feet surrounded by wildflower meadows