Mexican Hat is one of those mythic southwestern destinations. It's out there in Ed Abbey country, on the San Juan River, among the jumbled red rocks and mesas of southern Utah. Burning hot in the summer, it is a fabulous and fabled little spot. Norm Nevill's old motel is still in operation as the San Juan Inn, perched on the edge of a cliff overlooking the river.
The big draw today is the river. Mexican Hat is where the "daily" trips from Bluff land, and where the trips bound for the gorge and Clay Hills Crossing depart. Sit in the restaurant at San Juan Inn and watch the rafts and kayaks cruise by. The Mexican Hat Rock formation — a broad sandstone disk balanced on a narrow pedestal — sits just north of town and gives the place its name. Six miles away, Goosenecks State Park offers one of the most dizzying canyon viewpoints in the Southwest, looking straight down into a thousand-foot gorge where the San Juan makes five tight hairpin bends.