The Paiute ATV Trail, and riding out of Richfield.

You will hear different numbers, because a system this size is hard to pin to one figure. The honest version is this: the signed number one loop, the main route, runs roughly 240 miles, and counting the marked side trails and forest roads that branch off it the network passes 2,000 miles. It crosses four counties, Piute, Beaver, Sevier and Millard, and it ties together sixteen small towns. It is fairly called one of the largest connected off-highway trail systems in the country.

Ridden nonstop, the main loop takes about 25 hours in the saddle, but almost nobody rides it that way. People take it in sections, or spread the loop over three or four days, sleeping in the towns or camping along the way. Most of the loop is rated green and blue, the easier grades, with a handful of black side trails for riders who want them. Much of the system is open to side-by-side machines wider than fifty inches, though some two-track trails are held to fifty inches or narrower, so the map book's width marks matter if you run a wide machine.

The trail was not built all at once. It grew out of an idea two friends had in Circleville in the summer of 1988, stitching together old roads and trails across the Fishlake National Forest and the BLM land between them into one connected loop. What started as a way to link a few communities became the web you can now ride for weeks without repeating yourself.

Richfield is the largest town for more than a hundred miles, and that is exactly why it works as the staging point. In one town you have fuel, groceries, motels, RV parks and a KOA, a hospital, and outfitters who rent machines, sell the map book and service the one you brought. If something breaks or you forgot something, Richfield is the place on the whole loop most likely to have it. Sitting where I-70 meets US-89, it is also the easy town to reach with a trailer if you are coming from out of state to rent once you arrive.

Carry a real map. The full-color Paiute and Gooseberry OHV trail map book is sold at retailers along the corridor, including in Richfield, and it marks the trail numbers, the width limits and the difficulty. National Geographic map 708 covers the system, the Avenza app has a digital version, and the Forest Service offers free maps. Cell signal fades fast in the backcountry, so the paper book earns its place in the storage box.

If you want company and a set route, the trail hosts guided jamborees through the warm months, with the big side-by-side gathering in Richfield in August and a large guided event each September. Dates move year to year, so check the Paiute Trail Committee or ATVUtah for the current calendar rather than trusting a fixed date.

No tourism site really tells you what it is like to live where the trail starts. For a visitor the Paiute is a trip, planned and trailered and driven to. For a Richfield resident it is a Tuesday evening. The machine lives in the garage, registered street legal, and a short ride after work puts you on dirt in the foothills with the valley opening up below. You do not clear a whole day for it; you take the light you have.

That changes how people here think about a house. A garage or a shed deep enough for a side-by-side is not a luxury, it is the thing that makes the trail usable from the door. Where a street sits relative to the closest trailhead matters the way a view might matter somewhere else. It is also worth knowing the flip side: those same streets carry machine traffic on summer weekends, so the noise and dust are part of the deal, and neighbors who ride tend to keep the peace with neighbors who do not.

If you are weighing a move here for the riding, that is the practical lens. What does the garage hold, how far is the nearest access, and how do you feel about a town where a side-by-side on Main Street is ordinary. The Richfield city guide covers the housing and the neighborhoods; the trail is the reason a lot of people start looking in the first place.