Mountain canyon
Big Cottonwood Canyon
A Wasatch canyon carved first by a glacier and then by its stream, with Brighton and Solitude at the top and a protected drinking-water watershed throughout.
Utah canyons
Wasatch canyons above the cities, slot canyons in the desert and canyons known for rock art and pioneer history.
A first set of 21 canyons, not a complete list. These pages are background on each place, not route guides: trail details are on the hikes page, and roads, permits and closures change, so each page links the agency that posts them.
Salt Lake County
Mountain canyon
Little Cottonwood Canyon
A deep, glacier-shaped granite canyon with Snowbird and Alta at the top, Albion Basin above them and a protected watershed throughout.
Mountain canyon
Mill Creek Canyon
A close-in canyon of picnic areas, trails and a winter ski-and-bike road, with dog rules that differ from the watershed canyons next door.
Watershed canyon
City Creek Canyon
Salt Lake City’s nature preserve and first water source, where a paved road shared by walkers, runners and cyclists climbs past picnic sites to a treatment plant and protected watershed.
Historic corridor
Emigration Canyon
The canyon that brought the Donner-Reed Party in 1846 and the first Latter-day Saint pioneers in 1847 into the Salt Lake Valley, now a lived-in community along Emigration Canyon Road.
Utah County
Mountain canyon
American Fork Canyon
The canyon behind American Fork, with Timpanogos Cave, Tibble Fork, campgrounds and the north end of the Alpine Loop.
River canyon
Provo Canyon
The Provo River’s canyon and the US-189 route between Utah Valley and the Heber Valley, with the turnoff to Sundance and the Aspen Grove trailhead.
Northern Utah
River canyon
Logan Canyon
The Logan River’s limestone canyon and the scenic byway that follows it from Logan toward Garden City and Bear Lake.
River canyon
Ogden Canyon
The SR-39 canyon between Ogden and Ogden Valley, the main road to Pineview Reservoir and the valley’s ski areas.
Central Utah
Wash canyon
Grand Wash
A narrow, steep-walled wash through the Waterpocket Fold, with an easy walk through its narrows and the trail to Cassidy Arch on its north wall.
Historic canyon
Capitol Gorge
The narrow canyon that carried the main road through Capitol Reef from 1884 to 1962, with petroglyphs, the Pioneer Register and a short walk to waterpockets.
Southern Utah
National park canyon
Zion Canyon
The Virgin River’s sandstone canyon and the most visited part of Zion, ending upstream in The Narrows.
National park district
Kolob Canyons
Zion’s northwest corner: parallel box canyons and 2,000-foot cliffs reached from I-15, 40 miles from Zion Canyon and with no road between them inside the park.
Slot canyon
Buckskin Gulch
A slot canyon that runs roughly 16 miles through the north end of the Paria Canyon-Vermilion Cliffs Wilderness to its meeting with the Paria River.
Slot canyon
Wire Pass
A short slot canyon that drops into Buckskin Gulch, with a petroglyph panel at the confluence and a common way into Buckskin.
River canyon
Paria Canyon
The Paria River’s canyon from southern Utah into Arizona, a permit-only wilderness of high varnished walls, amphitheaters and hanging gardens.
Creek canyon
Calf Creek Canyon
A spring-fed creek canyon off Highway 12 with a year-round campground, pictographs and granaries, and a 126-foot waterfall at the end of a 6-mile trail.
Eastern Utah
Slot canyons
Little Wild Horse and Bell Canyons
Two slot canyons in the southern San Rafael Swell that join into an 8-mile loop, reached on the road past Goblin Valley State Park.
Rock art canyon
Horseshoe Canyon
A separate unit of Canyonlands, reached on long dirt roads, that holds the Great Gallery, one of North America’s best-known panels of Barrier Canyon-style rock art.
Rock art canyon
Nine Mile Canyon
A 46-mile canyon of rock art panels, historic inscriptions and homesteads, still farmed and ranched, reached from Wellington near Price.
Backcountry canyon
Grand Gulch
A winding canyon cut into Cedar Mesa, known for Ancestral Puebloan cliff dwellings and rock art, entered on foot with a permit.
Canyons and flash floods
Narrow canyons and washes can flood from storms you can't see: Capitol Reef warns that storms to the west can flood the park where no rain has fallen. The Park Service advises checking the National Weather Service flash flood potential forecast before going in, and the BLM advises avoiding slot canyons when rain is possible.