Upon arriving in Hanksville, Utah, visitors are immediately struck by both its extreme remoteness and the awe-inspiring alien landscapes. The question of why NASA frequently sends astronauts to this extremely remote town is also a major curiosity.
Regardless of the direction from which one approaches, reaching this town requires several hours of driving. The nearest international airport is approximately 220 miles to the north in Salt Lake City. However, many visitors still choose to drive from as far as 370 miles away from the southwest in Las Vegas.
Along the main street, a prominent sign tells one of Hanksville’s many famous stories: it was once a hiding place for infamous outlaws Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. In between robbing banks and trains, Cassidy and his “Wild Bunch” would seek refuge in the remote canyons of the region, evading legal consequences.
All of this demonstrates one thing: people don’t usually just happen to pass through Hanksville.
However, for a town with only around 200 residents, it manages to attract a substantial number of tourists each year, with its economic focus shifting towards leisure tourism. While most visitors use Hanksville as a stopover on their way to Capitol Reef National Park, Goblin Valley State Park, or Lake Powell, local tour operators often recommend spending an extra day or two in the area — Hanksville itself is full of unique charm and is an excellent base for exploration.
One of the town’s two gas stations, Hollow Mountain, was carved into a cliff face with 100 boxes of dynamite, allowing customers to experience the unique sensation of buying candy inside a mountain cave.
Further down the street, the jingling wind chimes mark the location of Carl’s Critter Garden; this roadside attraction would likely cause traffic accidents if it were in a busier town.
Between 1987 and 1992, local artists Carl Hunt and Paul Turner created hundreds of sculptures out of discarded mechanical parts, many of which take the form of dinosaurs — paying homage to the region’s significance in paleontology. Nearby Hanksville-Burpee Dinosaur Quarry remains one of the largest and most active dinosaur quarries in the United States to this day.
In addition to sculptures, this area also allows visitors to learn about “Shanti Christo” — a faith that emphasizes love, forgiveness, and inner peace. Plaques with Carl Hunt’s personal perspectives on kindness, criticism, and self-reflection are scattered throughout the garden.
Yet, what truly draws people to this corner of the world is the outdoor landscape, with a multitude of choices that make it difficult to choose from.
Heading west a few miles out of town on Cow Dung Road, the landscape seems to transport one to another planet. Scientists have found that the geology of Utah not only looks like Mars but is also highly similar to the Martian environment. It is now one of the few “Mars analog sites” on Earth for researchers to study extraterrestrial scientific issues.
Established in 2001, the Mars Desert Research Station has continuously hosted astronauts training for Mars missions, where they conduct simulated missions for several weeks, having to wear simulated spacesuits to leave the six buildings that include a greenhouse, science dome, and a 14-inch telescope. Every spring or summer, the station also hosts one of the world’s largest university robotics competitions — the “University Rover Challenge,” where teams build and test rovers on this Mars-like terrain.
The nearby swelling clay hills are another increasingly popular attraction in Hanksville. These rounded, undulating hills resemble candy-coated spheres, with layers of gray, red, green, and yellow sediments, formed in the Late Jurassic period when Utah was still a muddy swamp; the swelling clay (also known as bentonite) itself is a remnant of ancient volcanic ash decomposed over thousands of years. These hills have become a popular pilgrimage site on social media, but the color saturation in online photos often exaggerates the reality, with the true unique color tones only fully revealed during sunrise or sunset when the light is diffused.
Continuing along the highway, the red desert gives way to the “Mancos Shale” formations — a Cretaceous landscape characterized by black mudstone, no longer resembling Mars but rather closer to Mordor in “The Lord of the Rings,” with rocky spires and grand mountain ranges abound.
“Swing Arm City” is a popular destination for off-road vehicle enthusiasts, where riders traverse the bowl-shaped terrain on dirt bikes, resembling surfers weaving through waves; for onlookers, it is also an excellent spot to admire stunts and surreal environments.
Not far away, visitors can hike to a solitary spire that rises 100 feet from the valley floor, known by aliases such as “Long Dong Silver Spire” and “Blue Valley Spire,” both failing to completely capture its otherworldly atmosphere.
The towering flat-topped Factory Butte dominates the northern skyline, enticing many travelers to stay overnight nearby. Turning right along the road parallel to it, visitors can reach the “Moon Scenic Overlook” — a dispersed camping area offering hundreds of miles of unobstructed views. Travelers along the rugged outback road often describe feeling as if they have been transported to another world at a single moment.
Looking out from the overlook into the barren landscape, scarcely any trace of human presence is visible. Whether it’s Hanksville itself, the highways, or the distant lights of Moab City, it seems as though all records of the world have been erased, leaving only textures: foreground drainage patterns resembling spider webs, sand dunes, flat-topped mountains, and the distant La Sal Mountains.
At night, the sky seems endless, with the Milky Way’s long tail stretching infinitely into the distance. While the location’s reputation has gradually spread, no longer a hidden sanctuary seeking complete isolation, visitors can still capture a glimpse of tranquility here.
Most trips to Hanksville ultimately end at Stan’s Burger Shak. This burger joint is located next to another seemingly ordinary gas station in town. Aside from the popular “Hanksburger,” the real highlight is the shakes: light in flavor, seemingly bottomless in quantity, and changing with the seasons, such as the peach pie shake made with local orchard fruits or the limited edition pumpkin pie shake in the fall. At Stan’s, shakes are renowned for being thick, with portions often extending several inches above the cup rim, showing no traces of “shrinkflation.”
Local residents mention that the nearby Henry Mountains are home to a herd of Yellowstone National Park bison. This mountain range, equally remote, was the last one officially mapped in the United States, remaining a blank spot on maps until 1872. The snow-capped peaks contrast starkly with the shimmering desert below.
For seasoned travelers familiar with this region, a journey to Hanksville seems to never truly end with each visit, planting the seeds for the next adventure.