Utah: Panguitch Lake & Dixie National Forest

Ed and I have never been to Bryce Canyon National Park, but there's an astronomy festival being held this week, so we decided to take a short vacation and drive down; we'll stay until Sunday. It was a longish drive from northern Utah, so by the time we checked into our hotel we weren't up for doing anything extensive, so made Panguitch Lake our destination. “Panguitch” comes from the local Native American Indians and means “Big Fish"; the lake sits at an elevation of 8,400 feet.

looking across Panguitch Lake

The lake itself is situated within Dixie National Forest, which occupies almost two million acres and stretches for about 170 miles across southern Utah; it's the largest national forest in Utah, and it straddles the divide between the Great Basin and the Colorado River.

in Dixie National Forest, on the way back from
Panguitch Lake

not the Colorado River