The broad valley that contains Sterling and the surrounding settlements is one of the more quietly beautiful stretches of central Utah. The Wasatch Plateau rises steeply to the east, the San Pitch Mountains to the west, and between them runs a wide floor of irrigated pasture, cottonwood-lined lanes and old Mormon farmsteads — many dating to the 1850s and 1860s when Brigham Young sent colonists to farm the valley.
It is good cycling and driving country: the roads are flat, traffic is light and the views are open. The nearby towns of Manti, Ephraim and Spring City represent some of Utah's oldest European settlements, and Spring City in particular is a beautifully preserved 19th-century farming town recognised as a Utah Heritage Site. For anyone interested in the agricultural and religious history of the American West, the valley repays a slow half-day of exploration.