Southern Utah’s Gunlock State Park is growing in popularity, here’s why
GUNLOCK STATE PARK, Utah (ABC4) — Warm water in the summer and mild conditions year-round make Gunlock State Park a peaceful escape in southern Utah. The quiet park, however, has been rapidly expanding over the last few years.
Gunlock State Park, located in Washington County, is appreciated for its incredible hikes, mountain bike trails, free-range cattle, sandy beach reservoir and red rock waterfalls.
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In the last few years, Gunlock has greatly expanded, going from five campsites to 30 with the addition of three brand new tiny home cottages for rent.
Whether the falls are running or not, water is the name of the game at Gunlock State Park, as the popularity of the falls has led to growth.
“In the past 20 years, [the waterfalls] only ran about five times. The water comes from Pine Mountain, so when we have a good snowpack … it fills up our reservoir and the falls are a natural overflow, flowing down that red rock,” Gunlock Park Manager Collin Kuehn said.
The recent flow of water catapulted the state park into the spotlight through social media — with many people learning of the park because of the rare sight of southern Utah’s Gunlock Falls.
Others, however, have visited the park for years.
“I’ve been coming out here for a long, long time. Before they had campgrounds, before you had to pay to get in, I’ve been coming here for 20 years probably,” said Merv Nugent, a St. George resident.
As with all growth, there are some locals who would prefer to keep the state park just as it is.
“We come up here a lot, we just really enjoy it, it’s kind of a small quiet lake. We don’t want anybody to know about it though, so don’t put the story out,” said Curtis Nelson, a Draper resident, with a smile.
From the summer of 2022 to the summer of 2023, nearly 255,000 people visited the park compared to approximately 61,750 people the year prior.
While state parks have a wide range of annual attendance, Gunlock State Park saw significantly fewer people than Snow Canyon, Antelope Island, and Sand Hollow which received between 900,000 to 1.3 million visitors during the same time frame.
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This means the park, while rapidly expanding in recent years, is still thousands away from becoming a busy tourist destination.
Thanks to significant snowpack over the past two years, Gunlock Falls has been running this year, but visitors come for the other adventures too.
“We created this park so there is an activity for everybody,” Kuehn said. “We do in-house rental of paddle boards and kayaks, we have our boat ramp which we allow all sorts of watercraft on, a lot of fishing, we are a blue ribbon fishery.”
The park also has new horse pens for those who wish to explore the park on horseback, but keep in mind it’s BYOH, “bring your own horse.”
ABC4’s Chief Meteorologist Alana Brophy is on a road tour of Utah’s parks. For more information, see the Good4Utah Road Tour page.
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