Dive Sites in Utah, United States

A warm, red-sandstone-rimmed reservoir in Sand Hollow State Park near Hurricane, completed in 2002 and now southern Utah's most popular training and recreation dive. A designated scuba area holds purpose-sunk attractions including a twin-engine Cessna 320, a 26-foot Reinell boat, a VW-style bus, toilets, a practice bomb and a buoyancy course, lying at roughly 35-60 feet. Summer water reaches 75-80 F with 15-20 ft visibility, and the reservoir is dived year-round.

A 55-foot-tall beehive-shaped limestone dome in Midway enclosing a geothermal spring naturally heated to 90-96 F year-round, making it the only warm scuba destination in the continental US interior. Divers enter through a tunnel cut into the rock and descend from a deck to platforms in the hourglass-shaped shaft, with mounted lights at roughly 20 and 40 feet. The hole is about 65 feet deep but divers are asked to stay above 45 feet to avoid stirring the silt bottom. It is a privately operated, reservation-only facility at the Homestead resort.

Cisco Beach on the east shore of Bear Lake is the established dive site on this large turquoise alpine lake straddling the Utah-Idaho line. A rocky bottom and a steep drop-off close to shore give wall-style diving, with volcanic rock alcoves, a sunken boat, and 'The Car Lot' — an artificial reef of 1930s cars in about 60 feet of water. Visibility averages 20-30 feet and the lake hosts endemic species including the Bonneville cisco; surface temperatures run only 55-65 F even in summer.

A huge, deep, clear reservoir on the Green River near Dutch John with some of Utah's best freshwater visibility (20-40 ft). Established dive areas near the dam include the Cart Creek Bridge wall dive, Mustang Ridge, the Visitor Center shoreline, and the islands (Osprey/Gilligans) with walls and pinnacles. The reservoir is over 400 feet deep in places, so divers pick their depth on the walls; below the thermocline it gets dark quickly.

A 9-acre, 60-foot-deep geothermal spring-fed pond in the desert about 16 miles south of Wendover on BLM-managed wetlands within the Utah Test and Training Range. Bottom water holds near 85 F year-round, making it Utah's main winter training site, with two submerged platforms and diver-placed metal sculptures (hammerhead, turtle, rhino, praying mantis), boats and other objects to explore. A boardwalk crosses the marsh from the parking area to the water; summer algae blooms can cut visibility to a few feet.

A large reservoir at the top of Provo Canyon between Provo and Heber, dived mostly around the island near the state park entrance and along Sailboat Beach toward the dam. Maximum lake depth is about 137 feet with typical visibility of 7-10 feet, so it serves mainly as a convenient training and altitude-diving site for Wasatch Front divers. US-189 follows the shore, making access easy.