Ганкслвилл в штате Юта превращает свою удаленность в туристическое направление, привлекая гостей уникальными геологическими формациями и историей бандитов

Arriving in Hanksville, Utah, one of the first things that will immediately smack you in the face is just how far out there it is. For starters, regardless of which way you arrive, it will undoubtedly have taken you hours to get there. The nearest international airport is in Salt Lake City, about 220 miles north, and even then, many people end up driving in from Las Vegas, another 370 miles to the southwest. Along the main street, a very large, very obvious sign will inform you that, among its many claims to fame, Hanksville is perhaps best known as the hideout of the notorious outlaws Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. In between bank robberies and train heists, Cassidy and his Wild Bunch would hole up in the area's remote canyons, far out of reach of the law. All of which is to say, people don't often just happen upon Hanksville. And yet, for a town of just over 200 residents, it pulls a respectable number of visitors each year, and has reimagined its economy around recreational tourism.  Advertisement Advertisement And so while most people pass through Hanksville on their way to places like Capitol Reef National Park, Goblin Valley State Park or Lake Powell, I often encourage them to set aside a day or two in the area. Hanksville itself is quirky, making it an excellent base camp for exploration. One of the town's two gas stations, Hollow Mountain, was cut directly into the cliffside using 100 cases of dynamite, meaning you too can experience what it's like to buy gummy worms from a man in a cave.  When I last visited in May, just before temperatures began to climb, a bus disgorged a group of tourists traveling between Utah's mighty five national parks: Arches, Bryce Canyon, Canyonlands, Capitol Reef and Zion. Beth Parks (no relation), a visitor from Chicago, took one look at the place and declared it "kitsch, through and through." That didn't stop her from thumbing through a set of books on crystal healing inside. Down the street, the sound of tinkling chimes will signal that you're drawing near to Carl's Critter Garden, the type of roadside attraction that would undoubtedly cause a traffic incident were it in a town that had traffic.  Advertisement Advertisement Between 1987 and 1992, local artists Carl Hunt and Paul Turner built hundreds of sculptures out of discarded machinery parts. Many take the form of dinosaurs - their bodies rendered in nuts, bolts and scrap metal - in homage to the area's paleontological importance. The nearby Hanksville-Burpee Dinosaur Quarry remains one of the largest active dinosaur quarries in the country. The garden is still tended outside the now-abandoned Desert Inn Motel. I knocked on the door of one of the rooms that appeared to still house the property's tenant, but I don't know what I expected given the "Be back at some point" sign pinned to the door. In addition to the sculptures, the site also offers visitors a chance to learn about Shanti Christo, a Christian-Buddhist religion that emphasizes love, forgiveness and inner peace (although try finding inner peace with a T. rex looming over you). Hunt's personal thoughts on kindness, judgment and ego can be found on plaques scattered throughout the garden, and all I'll say is I'd have loved to buy him a beer.  Most Read Advertisement Advertisement Rare disease haunting the children of an idyllic Calif. suburb Sports | Ex-Cal softball player alleges coach coerced her into relationship Crime | New details uncovered in last year's shocking Burning Man homicide News | Ex-child actor claims she was repeatedly raped during Disney filming Read our stories ad-free on  the new SFGATE app. Eventually, though, you'll want to get out there and see the landscapes that draw people to this corner of the world. And here, I admit I'm at a bit of a loss. Not because there's nothing to recommend, but because there's so much to do it's hard to winnow the list down.  Drive a few miles west out of town, take a right onto Cow Dung Road, and you'll soon find yourself on another planet. Scientists realized that Utah doesn't just look like Mars, it is like Mars. Today, the land outside Hanksville is one of a handful of so-called Mars analogues on Earth where researchers can come to investigate extraterrestrial questions.  Advertisement Advertisement The Mars Desert Research Station, founded in 2001, has for many years welcomed astronauts training for missions to the red planet. When they visit, they act as though they are on Mars, undergoing weekslong missions during which they must don mock space suits to exit the compound's six buildings, which include a greenhouse, a science dome and a 14-inch telescope. In spring or summer, the station also hosts one of the world's largest college robotics competitions, the University Rover Challenge, where teams of students build and test their rovers against the land's Martian backdrop. Nearby, you'll find another spot that Hanksville is increasingly known for: the Bentonite Hills. These rounded, rolling knobs look like jawbreakers embedded across the land, with variegated layers of gray, red, green and yellow sediment laid down in the late Jurassic period when Utah was a much swampier place. The bentonite itself is a remnant of ancient volcanoes, formed as ash breaks down over millennia.  The Hills have become something of a pilgrimage for influencers, and the photos you see online are often overly saturated compared with real life. But if you visit at dawn or dusk, the diffuse light really does draw out the green, blue and purple tones, and there's really nothing quite like it.  Farther down the highway, you'll leave the red desert behind and enter another formation called the Mancos Shale, a Cretaceous layer defined by its blackened mudrock. Think less Mars, and more Mordor, complete with rocky spires and imposing mountains. Swing Arm City is a popular destination for off-highway vehicle enthusiasts, who carve their dirt bikes across the land's bowls as a surfer carves a wave. It's a spectator's paradise, both for the stunts the riders pull as well as the surreality of the surroundings. Not too far away, visitors can hike to a lone spire looming 100 feet over the valley floor. It goes by many names, including Long Dong Silver Spire and the Blue Valley Spire, none of which capture its downright-alien aura.  Advertisement Advertisement If I have the time to stay the night, I'll often turn my sights toward Factory Butte, a towering mesa that dominates the skyline to the north. If you drive out until you're parallel with it and turn right, you'll eventually end up at the Moonscape Overlook, a dispersed camping area with sweeping views for hundreds of miles. I'm convinced that somewhere along that bumpy road out, you cross a threshold that transports you to another place, if not another planet entirely. Looking out over the badlands, it seems like you should see some evidence of humanity - if not Hanksville, certainly a highway or the lights of Moab in the distance - and yet it's as if the world's slate has been wiped clean. All that's left is texture, from the spiderweb of drainages in the foreground to the dunes, mesas and distant La Sal Mountains. At night, the stars feel endless, the long tail of the Milky Way stretching far into the distance. There are many places that get oversold when you see them online, but Moonscape is one of the few places I can think of that truly matches the hype. Word has gotten out, so it's no longer a place for seeking isolation, but it's still possible at times to snatch some solitude. Inevitably, most of my trips to Hanksville end at Stan's Burger Shak, a burger joint attached to the other, more normal gas station. Instead of a hamburger, you can buy a respectably tasty Hanksburger, but the real draw is its milkshakes. The list of flavors feels endless, and depending on the time of year, you can find seasonal flavors such as a peach cobbler shake made using fruit from local orchards or, come fall, the pumpkin pie shake, a personal favorite.  Advertisement Advertisement Shrinkflation be damned at Stan's, where the milkshakes are so firm they climb several inches above the lip of the cup, like a tube of delicious lipstick. I've never managed to finish one in a single go, but that doesn't stop me from trying. My time at Stan's typically turns into a rumination on my next visit. I try to make it out to Hanksville once or twice a year, and almost always, I leave with the seed for another trip already planted.  I once heard from a local that there's a herd of Yellowstone bison living in the Henry Mountains, a chain of nearby peaks - you guessed it - so remote that they were the last mountain range in the country to be officially mapped, remaining as a blank space until 1872. Towering in the middle distance, they make for a sometimes harsh contrast, holding onto snow long after the desert below starts to shimmer in the heat.  This is what I mean when I say that no trip to Hanksville is ever truly complete. Life is just what happens in between visits. Advertisement Advertisement More National Parks - National park ranger quits, tours visitor centers to fight censorship - 30-year-old who set El Capitan speed record dies in national park climbing accident - Near Mount Rainier, mysterious sightings continue to baffle the public - Calif. marmot researchers turn to OnlyFans as their funding dries up We love national parks just as much as you do, so we have a newsletter that covers them from top to bottom.  Sign up here. This article originally published at Why NASA keeps sending astronauts to a gas station town in Utah. Advertisement Advertisement