HIKING HAPPENINGS - May 2025

When the bloom is on the Moab milkvetch along our irrigation ditches, it’s time for some glorious early summer hiking. Fisher Towers are jagged, tall, and Howard Phillips “H.P.” Lovecraft weird: ribbed, soaring, astonishing. Lovecraft (1890–1937) was an American writer famous for his tales of science fiction, fantasy, and horror: the kinds of stories you might carry in your head as you wander beneath these extraordinary towers northeast of Moab, especially on this cloudy, overcast, breezy day. I could imagine that this literary “titan of horror” had designed the Fisher landforms himself.

Located in Professor Valley (named for Sylvester “Professor” Richardson, 1830–1902), the towers’ bloody red, dark-chocolate Cutler sandstone is frosted with Moenkopi deposits featuring, as self-described rock nerd (and Moab Happenings writer) Allyson Mathis tells us, “the reddest of Moab’s red rocks.” The trail wanders below the towers at a respectful distance. Some say the Towers were named for a miner living nearby in the 1880s; others claim they were originally called the Pipe Organs; while others say “Fisher” is simply a corruption of “fissure.” Whichever origin story you believe, these formations are astounding.

You could check out the 2024 film The Old Ones, one of many movies based on Lovecraftian lore. Otherwise, if spy-comedy is more your genre, watch the opening scenes of 2002’s Goldmember. Described as being “somewhere in Utah,” Tom Cruise’s Austin Powers hang glides between Fisher formations chasing Gwyneth Paltrow on a motorcycle. I decide to access the towers in a more conventional way, driving north from Moab on US 191 and turning right/east up UT 128, the River Road. Passing several riverside resorts, I catch views of the towers beginning around milepost 19. At about milepost 21, I turn right/east at the signed turnoff and follow a dirt road for another two miles to the BLM campground and parking areas. The trail descends chunky steps at the south side of the parking areas.

I follow a slickrock ridge away from the main cliffs, then left again down into the ravine through a slot passing down from the left side of the ridge. The trail then veers up and directly beneath the Fisher Towers., including The Titan, the tallest of the towers at 900 feet. Trees are just leafing out in the ravines on this late spring morning, hosting several huge serviceberry bushes in bloom. So riparianly, ecologically, geologically, cinematically fantastic!

The King Fisher tower in the ridge line drops before reaching the western formation called Ancient Arts with its four separate summits, especially well known for its iconic Corkscrew Summit, first climbed in 1969 by Bill Roos and Paul Sibley. On this cool morning with storm clouds threatening, I am treated to watching climbers navigate the Corkscrew. The trail then continues along the base of the massive tower to a sandstone gully where a ladder is provided. I choose a ledge just above this ladder as a turnaround spot and make my brunch, chatting with a three-generation hiking group from Brigham City as they take multiple photos. You may also share the trail with runners and climbers, though bicycles are excluded.

Along the main Fisher Towers trail, I passed several intersections with the Red Onion Primitive Loop where you can opt for a more vigorous hike that connects to the Onion Creek parking area. On an earlier foray, I accessed this loop from the Onion Creek turnoff on the river road (just south of the Fisher Towers turnoff) involving a hairy 4WD dirt road. After the third crossing of Onion Creek, you turn left/north and go less than a mile to the trailhead. Lucky for me, my Ford F-150 had more confidence than I did. From either trailhead, you, too, can immerse yourself in the wonder of these towers, heeding the call of Lovecraft’s monstrous, sleeping god Cthulhu, experiencing Fisher’s dark chocolatey spookiness for yourself.