2 Best Sights in Southwestern Utah, Utah

A stone school, dusty cemetery, and a few wooden structures are all that remain of the nearby town of Grafton, which is between Springdale and Hurricane, a few miles west of the turnoff onto Bridge Road in Rockville. This ghost town, which has a dramatic setting with striking views of Zion's peaks, has been featured in several films, including Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

Surrounded by stunning striated bluffs and rock formations, here in this remote valley you can visit two ghost towns at once at the Paria (sometimes called Pahreah) townsite and movie set, one settled by hardy pioneers and one built by Hollywood but lost in 1998, briefly rebuilt, and then lost to a fire in 2006. In fact, floods also caused the demise of the original settlements along the Paria River, with the original town fully abandoned by around 1930. Films shot here include the 1962 Rat Pack comedy Sergeants 3, the Gregory Peck film Mackenna's Gold, and the famous Clint Eastwood Civil War western, The Outlaw Josey Wales, which was released in 1976, making it the last of the site's movie productions. To get here, drive 33 miles east of Kanab on U.S. 89, turning left—shortly after mile marker 31—at the Old Town Paria rock marker, and following the unpaved road about 4½ miles north to the parking area and wooden restroom.