Sunday Drive - Quail Creek State Park

With gas prices soaring we thought we’d offer a shorter Sunday Drive this week and suggest a drive out to Quail Creek State Park.

The reservoir was completed in 1985 and the park was opened to the public in 1986.

Quail Creek Reservoir boasts some of the warmest water in the state and lures boaters and anglers year-round. It’s located just 15 miles north of St. George and the road to get to the lake winds around spectacular scenery.

The maximum depth of Quail Creek can reach 120 feet, so it is cold enough to sustain the stocked rainbow trout, bullhead catfish, and crappie. Largemouth bass, which is also stocked, and bluegill thrive in the warmer, upper layers of the reservoir.

During the summer, boaters take advantage of the warm waters to ski, wakeboard, and more on the 600 acres of water surface at Quail Creek. Stand-up paddleboarding and kayaking are also fairly popular activities on the lake.

There are also numerous hiking and mountain biking trails surrounding the lake. The mountain biking trails vary in difficulty and cross some of that same scenic beauty the road follows.

All in all, it’s a great place to spend a warm summer day if you plan to enjoy the water. And it’s a fantastic place to hike, bike, and explore when the temperatures are milder in winter.

Two dams form the reservoir. The main dam is an earth-fill embankment dam. The south dam is a roller compacted concrete dam, constructed to replace the original earth-fill dam that failed in the early hours of New Year’s Day 1989.

There are quite a few articles on the history of the dam failure and we’ve linked a few of them below.

So get out there and enjoy, even if you do have to mortgage the house to fill up your gas tank!

Utah State Parks Website https://stateparks.utah.gov/parks/quail-creek/

Washington County Historical Society Website https://wchsutah.org/water/quail-creek-reservoir.php

Story from The Spectrum about the dam failure https://www.thespectrum.com/story/news/2015/09/22/30-years-later-quail-creek-dam-remembered-key-step-toward-growth/72651074/

Story from KSL about Quail Creek Reservoir https://www.ksl.com/article/40538945/hike-to-petroglyphs-enjoy-the-best-fishing-at-quail-creek-state-park