By Scott Buehler, Moving UtahKane Gulch Ranger Station, the counter that runs the mesa
UT-261, four miles south of UT-95 · Free to visit · Spring and autumn · Directions
Everything about visiting Cedar Mesa properly starts at one small building on UT-261, four miles south of the UT-95 junction and about 35 miles from Blanding. Kane Gulch Ranger Station is where day passes, week passes, annual passes, overnight backpacking permits and Moon House permits are issued in person, and it is where somebody who has walked the canyons this season will tell you what the water is doing.
Its hours are the single most important thing to check, and they surprise people constantly. It opens Thursday to Sunday, 8:00 until 12:00, and only in two seasons: 1 March to 15 June, and 1 September to 31 October. That is four mornings a week for about six and a half months of the year. Outside that, the door is shut.
What to do when it is closed
Day use permits are self issued outside the station's season at fee tubes placed at trailheads and kiosks on the mesa top. You fill in the envelope, pay by cash or check, and display the stub. Overnight permits are a different matter and are handled through recreation.gov or the BLM Monticello Field Office rather than a tube. The thing you cannot get outside the season is the conversation, which in a place where water sources decide the trip is the part worth planning around.
Go early even within the hours
A four hour morning window four days a week, in a place where the good walking seasons are exactly the same weeks the station is open, produces a queue at eight o'clock on an October Saturday. If a permit is the reason your trip exists, arrive at opening rather than at eleven, and have a second and third choice of canyon in mind because trailhead caps are real and they fill.
The details
Getting there
South four miles from Blanding on US-191, west on UT-95 about 28 miles, then south on UT-261 for four miles. The station is on the west side of the road with parking and a trailhead behind it.
Before you go
- Thursday to Sunday, 8:00 to 12:00, in season only. Confirm the current season with the BLM.
- Bring cash or a check for the self service tubes if you are arriving out of season.
- Ask about water. In these canyons it is the variable that decides whether a route works.
- Trailhead caps mean the canyon you wanted may be full. Have alternatives ready.
- There is no fuel, food or lodging out here. Blanding is the last of all three.
Grand Gulch from the Kane Gulch trailhead
Behind the ranger station · 15 dollars per person overnight · Spring and autumn · Directions
Grand Gulch is the long canyon system that gives Cedar Mesa its reputation, and the Kane Gulch trailhead behind the ranger station is its most used entrance. From there the drainage runs southwest for tens of miles, and the trips people take on it range from a long day walk down and back to multi day traverses coming out at a different trailhead entirely.
It is a primitive area rather than a park. There is no maintained trail in the sense most walkers mean, no signage in the canyon, no bridges, no toilets and no reliable water. Route finding is on you, the walking is in the streambed and over benches, and the season is set by heat and by water rather than by a gate.
The permit numbers, plainly
Day use on Cedar Mesa runs 5 dollars per person per day, 10 dollars for a week, or 40 dollars annually covering everyone in one vehicle. Overnight backpacking is 15 dollars per person per trip and is capped at 20 people per trailhead per day, which is the mechanism that keeps the canyons from being overwhelmed in the six good weeks of spring and the six of autumn. Reservations run through recreation.gov, typically from several days to a few months ahead, with unreserved permits available at the station.
Why the season is so narrow
Cedar Mesa sits above 6,000 feet, and the two windows that work are spring and autumn for the same reason the ranger station is open then. Summer is hot, exposed and short on water. Winter is cold, and the access roads become a problem long before the canyons do. That leaves March to mid June and September to October, which is why those weeks are busy, why trailhead caps bite, and why a plan built around any other month needs a much better reason than convenience.
The details
Getting there
The trailhead is immediately behind Kane Gulch Ranger Station on UT-261, four miles south of the UT-95 junction. Parking is at the station.
Before you go
- Overnight permits are capped at 20 people per trailhead per day and they do fill in season.
- Water is unreliable and always needs treating. Ask at the station what is running.
- There is no maintained trail and no signage once you are in the canyon.
- Every artifact and every sherd stays exactly where it is. Position is archaeological information.
- Do not enter structures, lean on masonry or walk on midden slopes.
The Owl and Fish Creek loop
South of Kane Gulch on UT-261 · Overnight permit · Spring and autumn · Directions
The Owl and Fish loop is the classic short backpack on Cedar Mesa: down one canyon, along the junction, and back up the other. Both Owl and Fish are on the BLM's named permit list along with Grand Gulch, Lime, Road, Slickhorn and Mule, and the loop is the trip most people who have done one Cedar Mesa route have done.
It is also the one that catches people out. The descent involves scrambling and there is exposure on it, the water in both canyons is seasonal and unreliable, and the route back up the second canyon is longer and hotter than the map suggests. It is a genuine backcountry trip in a primitive area, not a signposted loop with a parking lot at each end.
Two nights is the honest allowance
People attempt this in a day and some of them manage it. Most enjoy it far more over two nights, which gives time for the side canyons, the water carries and the heat of the middle of the day. The trailhead cap of 20 people per day per trailhead applies here as everywhere on the mesa, so a spring or autumn weekend needs planning rather than turning up, and the station will tell you what has already gone.
The road in is part of the trip
The access off UT-261 is graded dirt and it is fine in dry conditions and unpleasant otherwise. A passenger car can usually reach the trailhead when it has not rained, driven slowly. After rain, the same surface will strand a capable vehicle, and there is no signal and no traffic to help. Build the weather into the plan rather than the walk alone, because the drive out at the end is the part people forget to budget for.
The details
Getting there
West on UT-95, south on UT-261 past Kane Gulch, then east on the graded access road toward the trailhead. Confirm the current route and road condition at the ranger station.
Before you go
- Permits are capped at 20 people per trailhead per day and go early in the good weeks.
- The descent involves scrambling and exposure. It is not a walking route throughout.
- Water is seasonal in both canyons. Ask what is running before you set off.
- The access road is dirt. Wet, it will stop a capable vehicle.
- Leave every artifact and sherd where it lies and stay out of every structure.
Moon House, the one day hike with its own permit
Cedar Mesa · 5 dollars per person, 20 people a day · Spring and autumn · Directions
Moon House is the exception in the Cedar Mesa system. Every other day hike on the mesa runs on a day use pass; this one has a permit of its own, capped at twenty people a day, with roughly half the allocation reservable in advance and the other half held for day of issue at Kane Gulch Ranger Station.
That cap is the entire management approach, and it is worth understanding rather than resenting. Twenty people a day is what the site is judged able to take, and a permit system that hard is what keeps a place in that condition. It also means the trip is planned around the permit rather than the other way round: no permit, no visit, and no amount of driving changes it.
How to actually get one
Half the daily allocation is reservable ahead through the BLM permit system, and half is issued at the ranger station on the day. That second half is only available during the station's season and hours, which is Thursday to Sunday, 8:00 to 12:00, from 1 March to 15 June and 1 September to 31 October. An advance reservation is the reliable route; the day of route means being at the counter at eight in the morning on a day the counter opens.
The access is the other half of the difficulty
Reaching the trailhead involves unpaved road, and getting to the site itself involves a descent with scrambling. This is not a roadside stop and it is not suitable for every party. Anybody who wants the experience of standing near intact rooms without the drive and the scramble should do the Butler Wash overlook instead, which is free, signed and fourteen miles from Blanding, and then spend the saved hours at the museum in town.
The details
Getting there
The trailhead is reached from UT-261 by unpaved road. Confirm the current route, road condition and permit position with Kane Gulch Ranger Station or the BLM Monticello Field Office before setting out.
Before you go
- Twenty permits a day, about half reservable ahead and half issued day of at the station.
- Day of permits are only available in the station's season and its four morning a week hours.
- The access road is unpaved and the approach involves scrambling and exposure.
- Do not enter the structures, touch the masonry or the plaster, or move anything.
- If you cannot get a permit, do not go. The cap is the point of the system.
What it costs
Four different permits, and they are not interchangeable
The commonest mistake out here is assuming one pass covers everything. It does not, and the difference between a day pass and an overnight permit is a fine rather than a technicality.
| Permit | Price | Covers | Where to get it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Day use, daily | 5 dollars per person | One day of hiking in the fee area canyons | Recreation.gov, the station, or a trailhead fee tube |
| Day use, weekly | 10 dollars per person | Seven days of day hiking | Recreation.gov, the station, or a fee tube |
| Day use, annual | 40 dollars per vehicle | A calendar year, all occupants of one vehicle | Kane Gulch Ranger Station or the BLM Monticello Field Office |
| Overnight backpacking | 15 dollars per person per trip | One trip, capped at 20 people per trailhead per day | Recreation.gov in advance, or unreserved at the station |
| Moon House | 5 dollars per person | One day hike, capped at 20 people per day | About half reservable ahead, about half day of at the station |
Fees and allocations are set by the Bureau of Land Management and they change. Confirm the current figures and the current reservation window with the BLM Monticello Field Office before you rely on any of them.
The ranger station is shut more of the year than it is open. Kane Gulch is staffed Thursday to Sunday, 8:00 to 12:00, from 1 March to 15 June and from 1 September to 31 October. That is four mornings a week for roughly six and a half months. For the rest of the year, and for three days out of every seven inside the season, there is no counter, no day of Moon House permit and nobody who can tell you which water sources are running. Plan the trip around those hours rather than discovering them at the door.
The rules that are not park rules
Everything here belongs to somebody who is still here
The reason this area is managed the way it is has very little to do with crowding and everything to do with fragility. A masonry wall standing after seven or eight hundred years is standing because nobody has leaned on it. A pottery sherd on the ground is archaeological information only while it is where it fell. Rock art is destroyed by chalk, by water and by a hand, and none of that damage undoes.
So the rules are short and they are not negotiable. Look, do not touch. Leave every artifact exactly where it lies, including the sherds, and do not build collections on rocks for photographs. Stay out of structures and off walls, roofs and midden slopes. Do not add to rock art or wet it or trace it. Camp well away from sites, and go to the toilet a very long way from them. The BLM publishes a short film on visiting with respect, and it is worth the few minutes before a first trip.
There is also a plain courtesy underneath the regulations. These canyons are ancestral ground for present day nations, including the five that made up the Bears Ears Commission: the Hopi Tribe, the Navajo Nation, the Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah and Ouray Reservation, the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe and the Pueblo of Zuni. Those are current relationships, not historical ones, and all five are parties to the litigation over the monument right now. Behave in these canyons the way you would behave in a place that matters to people you might meet, because it is.
A permit caps how many people are in a canyon. Nothing caps what one careless visitor can undo.
The lines on the map
Cedar Mesa sits outside the monument as redrawn in July 2026
Cedar Mesa sits outside the line the July 2026 proclamation draws. Bears Ears stood at about 1.36 million acres after its 2021 restoration; the proclamation signed on 13 July 2026 cuts it to about 121,096 acres in two units, the Shash Jaa Unit of about 106,816 acres around the buttes and an Indian Creek Unit of about 14,279 acres to the north. Nearly all of this tableland, including Grand Gulch and the canyons draining off it, falls outside both units. Comb Ridge and part of the Butler Wash Archaeological District, the country you cross on the way there, stay inside the Shash Jaa Unit. The reduction takes effect on 11 September 2026, and until it does the larger boundary still governs on the ground.
The five nations filed litigation over the reduction, and the proclamation also disbands the Bears Ears Commission. Whether the Antiquities Act allows a president to reduce a monument at all is the question before the court; this page is not going to guess at the answer.
What that means for a visitor in practice is narrower than it sounds and worth stating precisely. The Cedar Mesa fee and permit system is a Bureau of Land Management recreation management tool, not a monument one, and BLM has run it here since long before 2016. Federal protection of archaeological resources applies regardless of monument designation. What is genuinely unsettled is which management plan governs which acres and what may eventually be permitted on the ground that has been removed. Bears Ears is administered jointly by the Bureau of Land Management, through its Monticello Field Office, and by the U.S. Forest Service on the Manti-La Sal National Forest, so ask them what applies today rather than reading it off a map.
Before you go
Learn it at the museum
Edge of the Cedars in Blanding is where the etiquette gets taught in a place designed for it, including a kiva you are allowed to enter.
The museum pageNo permit needed
The free stops on UT-95
The Butler Wash Ruins overlook and the Mule Canyon roadside site are signed, developed and cost nothing.
The reef pageFurther west
Natural Bridges
A paved nine mile loop with three bridges, a campground and the darkest sky in the system, about 40 miles from town.
The monument pageThe other approach
Bears Ears from the north
Indian Creek, Newspaper Rock and the Needles are reached from Monticello, 21 miles up US-191, on a different set of roads.
The Monticello guideWhat this page leaves out, and why
- Route descriptions and directions to unmarked sites. The agencies publish the permit canyons and the developed trailheads and nothing more, and neither does this page.
- Any suggestion that a first visit to this country should be a canyon. It should be the Butler Wash overlook and the museum in Blanding, both of which are free or nearly so and neither of which needs a permit.
- The reef itself. Comb Ridge, Butler Wash, the UT-95 cut and the two county roads either side are their own page here.
- Natural Bridges, which is a national monument with its own entrance fee, its own loop road and its own page, about 40 miles from Blanding.
- Indian Creek, Newspaper Rock and the Needles, which are the northern approach to this same country and belong to Monticello.