10 Best Sights in Northern Utah, Utah

Eight miles wide and 20 miles long, Bear Lake is an unusually radiant shade of blue, thanks to limestone particles suspended in the water. The Utah half of the lake is a state park. Along the south shore of Bear Lake, Highway 30 traces an old route used by Native Americans, mountain men, and settlers following the Oregon Trail. Harsh winters persuaded most settlers to move on before the first snows, but hardy Mormon pioneers settled in the area and founded Garden City. From town you can stroll along a ¼-mile boardwalk through a small wetlands preserve to the lakeshore, and there's a large marina just to the north. The park operates a few other recreation areas along other parts of the shore, including Rendezvous Beach to the south, which has a marina and burger stand, and Cisco Beach on the lake's quieter eastern shore, where the lake bottom drops off quickly, making it a favorite spot among anglers and scuba divers. The lake is home to four species of fish found nowhere else, including the Bonneville cisco, which draws anglers during the January spawning season.

Established in 1928 to conserve the Bear River habitat for migratory waterfowl and wildlife, this 80,000-acre U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service refuge is just west of Brigham City. You can observe wildlife along a 12-mile driving route and 1½ miles of walking trails, with ducks, geese, pelicans, herons, swans, shore birds, and more than 200 other kinds of birds arriving in various seasons. The Wildlife Education Center contains interactive displays and observation decks.

This 5-acre park near the mouth of Ogden Canyon is the stomping ground for about 100 life-size dinosaur models and the delighted children who come to see them. A playground with dinosaurs to crawl on appeals to younger kids, and adults can brush up on their geology and paleontology inside two natural history museums. You can watch technicians working with excavated dinosaur bones in the paleontology lab. A particularly good gift shop brims with dinosaur toys and souvenirs.

The Union Pacific and Central Pacific Railroads met here at Promontory Summit on May 10, 1869, to celebrate the completion of the first transcontinental rail route. Today, the National Park Service runs the site, which includes a visitor center and two beautifully maintained locomotives that are replicas of the originals that met here for the "wedding of the rails." Every May 10 (and on Saturday and holidays in summer), a reenactment of the driving of the golden spike is held, and throughout summer you can watch the trains in action on demonstration runs a few times a day. You can also walk a 1½-mile trail around the site and drive two scenic auto tour routes that reveal the terrain and engineering feats involved in creating this remote stretch of the rail line. In August, boiler stoking, rail walking, and buffalo-chip throwing test participants' skills at the Railroader's Festival. The Winter Steam Festival around Christmas gives steam buffs opportunities to photograph the locomotives in the cold, when the steam from the smokestacks forms billowing clouds. To get here, it's about a 40-minute drive west from Brigham City and a 90-minute drive north of Salt Lake City.

The centerpiece of downtown Ogden's highly successful renaissance, this broad, lively street with restaurants, bars, and shops set inside handsomely restored 19th-century buildings is a great spot for a stroll any time of day. Historical markers tell the story of the pubs, brothels, and gambling houses that thrived here a century ago, an anomaly in heavily Mormon Utah. The three-block stretch from Union Station to Washington Boulevard is especially vibrant, but the action continues a couple of blocks north to 23rd Street, where you'll find the Salomon Center (an indoor complex of gyms and fitness enterprises that includes a bowling alley, surfing and wakeboarding park, climbing wall, and indoor wind tunnel) and a big multiscreen movie theater at the corner of Kiesel Avenue. As you venture east, beyond Grant Avenue and between 24th and 26th Streets, you'll encounter the rapidly emerging Nine Rails Creative District, a hub of galleries, start-up businesses, and creative endeavors that's anchored around the multiuse Monarch Building ( 455 25th St.), with its art studios and murals.

Although close to Interstate 15 on the north side of the city, this quiet 152-acre center abounds with opportunities to view and interact with nature. It's home to thousands of trees, plus vibrant marshlands and ponds, with nature trails that are popular year-round (cross-country skiers take to them in winter). It's possible to view Canada geese, great blue herons, red foxes, mule deer, and porcupines roaming the grounds (you can get especially good views from a small observatory tower), as well as rescued bald eagles, owls, and other spectacular species. The eco-consciously designed visitor center has interesting exhibits as well as activities for kids, while the education building shows rotating art exhibits and the excellent Nest gift shop sells nature-oriented goods.

This 1,500-foot-long, 15-foot-wide earthen creation that juts in a spiral out into Great Salt Lake was created by artist Robert Smithson in 1970 and is often photographed by passengers in planes flying overhead. The jetty, 16 miles from the Golden Spike site via a dirt road, was submerged for much of the subsequent 30 years, before the lake level fell precipitously in 2002 revealing the structure again. The snail shell–shape land art structure is considered one of the most remote sculptures in modern American art history, and it is Utah's state work of art.

From Logan, U.S. 89 continues for 30 miles up Logan Canyon before topping out at the crest of the Bear River Range (from which it continues another 10 miles to Bear Lake). For a particularly satisfying excursion that leads to awesome hiking and mountain biking, drive the well-signed 7-mile side road to Tony Grove Lake. At more than 8,000 feet, this subalpine jewel is surrounded by cliffs and meadows filled in summer with a stunning profusion of wildflowers. A short trail circles the lake. Mountain bikers and hikers alike can access a prime wilderness area via the 3.3-mile one-way route from the lake to the 9,984-foot summit of Naomi Peak, which offers 80-mile views on clear days. With a gain almost 2,000 feet in elevation, the hike passes through conifer forests and open meadows and along subalpine basins and rocky ledges. A shorter hike to White Pine Lake, which begins on the same trail and splits after a quarter of a mile, is also lovely.

Established in 1888 as a small agricultural school, USU now enrolls around 27,000 students and is an intellectual and technological leader in land, water, space, and life enhancement. The scenic, 400-acre campus is best toured by starting at the historic Old Main administration building east of downtown Logan—look for the bell tower. Inside the building you'll find the Museum of Anthropology, which contains an impressive collection of prehistoric and contemporary Native American artifacts and cultural works. The first Saturday of each month features family-friendly exploration of a specific country through its food, art, crafts, and music. Also worth a stop is the Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art, which is in a striking contemporary building a few blocks northeast of the campus Quad and contains a permanent collection as well as mounting rotating shows. You can also pick up a map here of sculptures and public art visible throughout the campus.