State guide

Utah Nature Guide

Utah is a high, dry, vertical state where the Great Basin meets the Colorado Plateau along the spine of the Wasatch and Uinta ranges, stacking sagebrush valleys, alpine snowfields, red-rock canyons, and salt flats within a single horizon. Its defining wonder is the Great Salt Lake and its fringing wetlands — Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge and Antelope Island host millions of Wilson's Phalaropes, Eared Grebes, and American Avocets on a hemispheric migration — set against the 'Mighty Five' canyon parks of Zion, Bryce, Arches, Canyonlands, and Capitol Reef. USDA zones run from a frigid 4 in the high mountains and Uinta Basin to a warm desert 8 around St. George, and Utah holds more certified Dark Sky places than any state.