Utah residents, Brian head Trail suggestions?

Going to Brian head in a couple weeks and am looking for some recommendations of trails around there I should check out. Any suggestions are appreciated!

 

Depends on what you call a trail, there's not much more than dirt roads around Brianhead. I haven't explored much to the east of the highway, but there's some cool overlooks of the valley:



Panguitch lake is nearby and kind of cool, but not a lot there. There's more "trails" near St George and Hurricane. Three peaks recreation has some trails, but mostly just dirt and gravel roads with some rocks you can crawl on. Parowan gap is cool and has a bunch of petroglyphs, there's a lot of dirt roads around it too that connect Cedar City up to Beaver. All depends on what you want, within an hour and a half radius of Brianhead you have two large sand dune areas, the hardest rock crawling trails in the lower 48 (and two different host locations to rock crawling competitions), multiple national parks/monuments, multiple ski areas, multiple lakes you can drive on the shore of, and tons of dirt roads from smooth to massive whoops. All depends on your wants. Southern Utah has in my opinion the largest diversity of outdoor and offroad stuff all within an easy day drive, just pick a direction and go!

 

Thanks for the info. Not looking for too much rock crawling per say. Dirt road/gravel are good as I'll have family with me. Just looking for a couple places to go and check out some views we don't get here in CA. Plan on snowboarding a couple days, snowmobiling one day then have a couple days with nothing planned. First time to this area so really dont have a clue where to go. Parowan gap sounds like it would work or the lakes where we can drive on the shores. Appreciate the help @snivilous !

 

honestly just watch some matts offroad recovery and pick a nice scenic spot where someone got stuck and go there! they usually show on the map where they are going and sometimes you get gps coordinates.

 

Haha I've seen some of their youtube vids. Certainly not trying to be in one but not a bad idea to get some ideas, thank you

 

Gotcha. Here are my recommendations:
Parowan Gap
Cedar Breaks
Zion
Toquerville Falls
Panguitch Lake
Sand Hollow Lake
Babylon Arch
Red Reef Trailhead
Warner Valley Dinosaur Tracks
If you take highway 89 towards Kanab there's lots of cool sights. Actually what I would suggest is take 89 to Mount Caramel Junction and go through Zion backwards, even if it's just for a drive. That will pop you out in Hurricane, which is where a lot of the things I listed are near. That's a pretty big loop but a good time. Right next to Mount Caramel Junction is "Twin Hollows Campground" road. If you drive down that to the end, you drive across the virgin river like 20 times and lots of cool views. It's a dead end (insanely steep sand hill at the end you won't be able to climb) but pretty cool. There's also a big tunnel you can climb through that goes under the highway sooner after you exit the highway onto that road. The river is pretty shallow, just a few inches, but lots of cool sights there. There's also things like peekaboo slot canyon and some caves and stuff along highway 89 further past Mount Caramel Junction. Coral Pink Sand Dunes is also right down the road.

There's also a ski area next to Beaver, I forget what it's called. But that's another option that's nearby.

In Parowan there is a Chinese place that's really good called Mountain Bistro that's in a hotel. That will be right down the hill from Brianhead (one of the few food options in Parowan). There's also Bowman's Cowboy Kitchen north west of Cedar City that is somewhat hidden but has good food. The Pizza Cart in Cedar City makes really good wood fired pizza too. There's also a few places in Brianhead for food, but I've yet to stop there.

Oh there's also a high point right above Brianhead you can drive to, just go up the highway a little and it's on the left. It's a dirt road to a little building that is the local high point, really short drive but super cool view and it's at 11,300ft. Hopefully that's a good list to get you started if you have some days to kill, I definitely recommend 89 (either through duck creek, or if that's closed for the winter over to panguitch and around) and down to Mount Caramel, through Zion, explore around Hurricane, and then you can loop back up through Cedar City on the interstate. Oh, Bryce Canyon is also nearby and super cool. Though it's a little out of the way, but not far of a drive.

 

I do see a crapton of matts offroad recovery episodes from sand hollow, make sure you air down in the sand lol

 

You are the man, thank you! This is exactly what I was looking for, I appreciate your time helping with me out with recommendations