The Gooseberry I-70 trailhead
Nine miles east, off Exit 63 Free to stage Spring to fall
The Salina outdoor hook that surprises people is the Gooseberry I-70 trailhead, about nine miles east of town and inside Fishlake National Forest. You leave the interstate at Exit 63, the Gooseberry Road exit, turn south a short distance, then onto the frontage road for a little under half a mile to the trailhead and its dispersed campsite. It is the closest marked door onto the Paiute ATV Trail system from Salina, and it is set up for staging, not just parking.
On site there is a vault restroom, dirt parking with room to unload, an information kiosk, an ATV loading ramp, picnic tables, room to camp, and a pair of hitching posts for horses. The Great Western Trail runs through here too, open to hikers, to horseback riders, and to machines fifty inches or narrower. From the trailhead you can turn west onto the Paiute number one route and ride into Salina, where there is fuel and a meal, which is exactly what makes the town useful to a rider.
The full Paiute network, its history and its rules, lives on the region Paiute ATV Trail page. Here the point is proximity: a marked, equipped trailhead nine miles from a town with gas and a grocery, which is not a combination every trail town can offer.
The details
Getting there
From Salina, take I-70 east to Exit 63, the Gooseberry Road exit. Turn south a short distance, then left onto the frontage road and follow it a little under half a mile to the trailhead and campsite. It is a quick freeway hop from town, with the last stretch on dirt.
Before you go
- A machine ridden on the trail needs a current Utah OHV registration; visitors from out of state need a nonresident permit. Confirm the rules with the Utah State Parks off-highway program before you load up.
- To ride the roads into Salina the machine has to be set up street legal and the driver licensed. Ride slowly and quietly through town.
- This is dispersed camping, so pack out what you bring in; the vault restroom is the only facility.
- Cell signal fades quickly once you climb, so download a map and carry the Paiute and Gooseberry trail map book.
Riding the Paiute Trail from town
Trail into town Street legal Survey linked
What makes Salina more than a place to park is that the trail comes to it. The Paiute number one route runs west off the Gooseberry trailhead and into Salina itself, so a rider can gas up, eat, and ride out without ever loading onto a trailer. That in-town access is the whole appeal of the Paiute for the people who live along it.
No tourism map tells you what it is like to live where the trail starts. For a visitor the Paiute is a trip, trailered in and driven to. For someone in Salina it can be a weeknight: the machine registered street legal in the garage, a short ride out the Gooseberry way after work, dirt underfoot before the light goes. Utah's rules and the trail towns' ordinances let street-legal machines move on the roads, and Salina is one of those towns. The courtesy that keeps it working is simple, ride slowly and quietly through the neighborhoods, because that access is a privilege the town grants and could narrow.
The Paiute as a whole is one of the largest connected off-highway systems in the country, a signed main loop of roughly 240 miles with more than 2,000 miles of marked side trails and forest roads branching off it, managed by the Fishlake National Forest and the BLM. The full survey, the loop, the sixteen trail towns, the registration details and the map, is covered on the region Paiute ATV Trail page rather than repeated here.
The details
The San Rafael Swell, east on I-70
East on I-70 A roadside grand No services
Head east out of Salina and I-70 climbs Salina Canyon, tops the Wasatch Plateau, and drops toward the San Rafael Swell, a giant blister of rock in Emery County that the freeway splits down the middle. The Swell is a geologic dome roughly seventy-five miles by forty, pushed up about sixty million years ago and then carved into reefs, canyons and buttes. I-70 is the only interstate that crosses it, which is part of why the drive is famous.
Salina is the north and west launch for that country, and it is fair to be honest about the word gateway. Green River claims the same title from the eastern side, and it sits closer to the Swell's most photographed edge, the San Rafael Reef. What Salina offers is the practical start, the last full tank and hot meal before more than a hundred miles of empty freeway. The Swell's scenery unspools along that run, with marked viewpoints pulling off the highway as you go.
The Swell's interior draws, the Wedge Overlook and its Little Grand Canyon on the San Rafael River, are reached from the Castle Valley side near Ferron and Castle Dale, not from Salina, so treat those as a full day from a different direction. From Salina the Swell is the view through the windshield and the reason to keep the tank full, and it is a genuinely grand one.
The details
Fishlake National Forest
South and east High country Summer and fall
South and east of Salina the ground rises into Fishlake National Forest, one of the largest national forests in the state at roughly 1.5 million acres spread across nine counties. The Gooseberry trailhead sits at its edge, and the high country behind it, the Gooseberry and Great Western trail systems on the plateau, is Forest Service land: aspen, spruce, summer range and cool air a few thousand feet above the valley floor.
The forest's marquee is Fish Lake itself, the largest natural mountain lake in Utah, but that sits well to the south and is covered on its own region Fish Lake page. From Salina the forest is mostly the near country you climb into for a summer drive, a cooler campsite, or a fall aspen run, reached up Salina Canyon and the Gooseberry Road rather than the long haul to the lake.
The details
Salina Canyon and the coal road
A working corridor Context, not a stop
The canyon I-70 climbs east of town is Salina Canyon, and it has carried more than travelers. Railroad service reached Salina in 1891, and coal has moved through the canyon country since, so if you see loaded coal trucks on the highway or the back roads, this is why.
About thirty miles east, out past the canyon, is the SUFCO mine, run by Wolverine Fuels. It is one of Utah's largest coal producers and one of the oldest continuously operating coal mines in the country. It is not in Salina, and you will not see it from the interstate, but it is a real part of the local job base and the traffic. For an outdoor visitor it is mostly context: the canyon is a working corridor as well as a scenic one, so share the road.
The details
Near-here water and high lakes
An hour each way Region pages Day trips
Salina is not a lake town, but water is within reach. The closest state-park water is Yuba, on the Sevier Bridge Reservoir off I-15, about fifty-three miles north and west, roughly an hour: sandy beaches, warm-water fishing, and boating. It sits closer to Nephi than to Salina, so the region Yuba State Park page carries the full picture.
Farther south, past Richfield, the high country holds Fish Lake and the Fishlake Scenic Byway, Utah's largest natural mountain lake and its cold-water fishing, about an hour and a bit from town. Both are near-here rather than Salina's own, and both have their own region pages; from Salina they are day trips, not a walk out the door.
