The state park Moab
The state park on the road to Canyonlands, with its own gate
Dead Horse Point, and the fee nobody expects.
A promontory joined to the mesa by thirty yards of rock, two thousand feet above a gooseneck of the Colorado, on the same UT-313 as Island in the Sky and covered by none of the same passes. Twenty dollars at the gate, 16.6 miles of singletrack behind it, four yurts, and the first Utah state park certified for its night sky.
Southern Utah is my home turf. Moab is not, so these pages are researched rather than lived: checked against city, county and venue sources, and dated so you can see how fresh they are. For the on-the-ground work here I lean on a Grand County partner agent.
Start here
A state park on the same road as the national one.
Dead Horse Point sits on a narrow neck of mesa 2,000 feet above a gooseneck of the Colorado River, about 32 miles and 45 minutes from Moab up US-191 and UT-313. The turnoff comes before the Canyonlands entrance, which means most people drive past it on the way to Island in the Sky and see the sign without registering what it is.
What it is, and this is the thing that costs visitors money, is a Utah state park rather than a unit of the National Park Service. An America the Beautiful pass will not open the gate. Neither will the 55 dollar Arches and Canyonlands local annual pass. Day use is 20 dollars for a private vehicle carrying up to eight people, and it is valid for the date of purchase only rather than for seven days.
It earns the second fee. The view from the point is the one that appears on a great deal of Utah tourism material and gets captioned as Canyonlands, and the park around it carries 16.6 miles of singletrack, two campgrounds, four yurts, a visitor center and a night sky certification that predates the one at Arches by three years.
Dead Horse Point at a glance
2,000 ft
above the gooseneck in the Colorado below
20 dollars
a private vehicle, the day of purchase only
16.6 mi
the Intrepid singletrack system
2016
the first Utah state park certified for dark sky
The point, and the name
A narrow neck of rock, and a story the park itself hedges.
The geography is the whole thing. The point is a promontory joined to the main mesa by a neck of rock only about thirty yards wide, with a two thousand foot drop on both sides of it. Walk out and the country opens through nearly three hundred degrees: the Colorado swinging through its gooseneck below, the Canyonlands rim country beyond it, and the La Sal Mountains closing the eastern horizon.
The name comes from that neck. The account the park gives is that in the late nineteenth century cowboys used the promontory as a natural corral, fencing the narrow neck to hold wild horses gathered off the mesa. What happened to a band of horses left there afterwards is where the versions diverge, and the park's own interpretation presents it as tradition rather than record. That is the honest position: the corral is plausible geography, the rest is a story that has been retold for a century.
The other thing visible from the point is not scenic. Directly below, on the river bench, sit the blue evaporation ponds of the potash operation, dyed to speed solar evaporation. They are startling on a first look and they are the reason the road on the far bank exists. It is a useful corrective to the idea that this is untouched country: it is worked country with a very good view over it.
The rim trail is the walk, not the overlook
Most visitors drive to the point, look, and drive out, which takes twenty minutes and misses the park. The rim trail runs the edge of the mesa on both the east and west sides with a series of named overlooks strung along it, and walking even a mile of it gets you away from the point car park entirely. Basin Overlook on the west side and the east rim toward the campgrounds are the two stretches worth the time.
This is not the same view as Grand View Point
People conflate the two because both are rim overlooks on the same road, and they are genuinely different. Grand View Point at Island in the Sky looks out across three levels of country toward the confluence. Dead Horse Point looks down onto a single tight meander of the Colorado from directly above it, which is a more intimate and more legible thing. Doing both in one day is easy and neither makes the other redundant.
A promontory joined to the mesa by thirty yards of rock, with two thousand feet of air on either side of the path out to it.
What it costs
The full schedule, because no federal pass touches any of it.
These are the park's own figures as of August 2026. State park fees are set separately from national park fees and they move on a different calendar, so confirm before you travel.
| What it covers | Cost | |
|---|---|---|
| Day use, private vehicle | Up to eight people, date of purchase only | 20 dollars |
| Day use, Utah resident 65 and over | The same, at the senior rate | 15 dollars |
| Day use, motorcycle | Per motorcycle | 10 dollars |
| Day use, walk in or bike in | Per four cyclists or walkers | 10 dollars |
| Resident annual permit | A year of Utah state parks, under 65 | 125 dollars |
| Kayenta and Wingate campsites | Per night, peak months March to June, September and October | 60 dollars, or 50 off season |
| Wingate hike in tent sites | Per night, peak and off season | 45 dollars, or 40 off season |
| Yurts | Per night, with a lower rate on selected dates | 150 dollars, or 100 plus taxes |
Camping and yurt bookings run through 800-322-3770 and Reserve America up to four months ahead. The park is typically full from March through November, and extra vehicles at a campsite are charged separately.
The two figures worth planning around are the day-use validity and the booking window. Day use covers the date of purchase and nothing beyond it, so a visitor spending two evenings at the point pays twice unless the annual permit makes sense, which for a Utah resident staying a week and touring other state parks it often does. Camping opens four months out and the peak months go, so a March to November trip that depends on a site here is a booking made in advance rather than a decision made on arrival.
The campgrounds themselves are unusual for their setting. Kayenta and Wingate sit on the mesa within walking distance of the rim, with the four yurts at Moenkopi near the entrance and further sites at Wingate. There is a visitor center with water, and there are current fire restrictions prohibiting open fires of any kind, which is a standing condition on this mesa rather than an exceptional one and should be checked before you pack a fire pit.
The trails and the sky
Sixteen miles of singletrack, and the first certified dark sky in the state system.
The Intrepid Trail System is 16.6 miles of singletrack running north from the visitor center over a mix of forest floor and slickrock, and it is the friendliest mountain biking anywhere near Moab. That is not a criticism. In a region whose signature rides are a 10.5 mile technical slickrock loop and a 26.5 mile alpine descent, having a network where a competent but ordinary rider can string together loops with rim views and no drops is genuinely valuable.
The loops nest. Intrepid itself is the shortest and easiest, Big Chief adds distance without adding much difficulty, and Twisted Tree is the technical end of the system. All of them are ridden clockwise and all of them can be walked, which makes this one of the few places in the area where hikers and riders share ground without friction. Bike rental is available in the park through a local operator.
The sky is the other half. Dead Horse Point was certified an International Dark Sky Park in 2016, the first Utah state park to earn the designation, and the geography helps: a mesa top with no settlement in the line of sight and a horizon that runs nearly the whole way round. Gates are open until 10pm year round, so this is a night sky you can visit without any special arrangement.
Riding it in the right season
The mesa sits around 5,900 feet, which is nearly two thousand feet above Moab, and that shows up in the calendar. The Intrepid system rides comfortably in spring and autumn, holds up better than the valley in summer heat, and can carry snow and mud in winter when the slickrock in town is dry. Check with the park rather than assuming Moab conditions apply up here, because they routinely do not.
A two thousand foot rim with no continuous fence is the actual hazard here, not the drive or the trail. The overlooks at the point have railings and most of the rim does not. The mesa edge is undercut in places, the rock at the lip is often loose, and the drop is straight rather than sloping. Keep well back from unfenced edges, keep hold of children the entire time you are near one, and treat photographs taken from the very lip as a thing other people do. The park is otherwise about as low risk as a day out in this country gets.
Keep reading
More of Moab on The Local.
Things to do
The top 11, ranked
Eleven picks, ranked, each with a fact block and an honest read on the season.
Read the guideFive miles north
Arches, and the year the gate opened
No timed entry in 2026, a 30 dollar gate, and two Fiery Furnace permits that still sell out.
Read the guideThe mesa
Canyonlands, Island in the Sky
A mesa 1,000 feet above the rest, and a 100 mile road no passenger car can start.
Read the guideThe river
The Colorado through Moab
Two scenic byways, 17 miles of Class IV water, and 16 million tons moved off the bank.
Read the guideThe rock itself
Slickrock and the Sand Flats
A 10.5 mile loop cut for Honda Trail 90s in 1969, on 9,000 acres run by fees alone.
Read the guideEaster week
Easter Jeep Safari
Nine days in March 2027, 75 dollars a trail day, and a town running at capacity.
Read the guideThe high country
The La Sal Mountains
A 60 mile loop under a 12,721 foot peak, and the only cool air within an hour in July.
Read the guideThe paperwork
Permits, passes and entry
Every gate fee, permit window and release date around Moab in one place, dated.
Read the guideMoving here
Living with the season
Nightly rental decided parcel by parcel, an aquifer with no slack, and a wage gap.
Read the guideThe companion
Moab, in full
Two national parks, a river, a mountain range, and a season that runs the town.
Read the pageQuick answers
Dead Horse Point, answered.
No. It is a Utah state park with its own entrance, its own fee schedule and its own reservation system, sitting on the same UT-313 that leads to the Island in the Sky district of Canyonlands. A national park pass does not open the gate, and neither does the 55 dollar local annual pass covering Arches, Canyonlands, Natural Bridges and Hovenweep. This is the most common fee mistake visitors make in the Moab area, and it is worth budgeting for rather than discovering at the booth.
Twenty dollars for a private vehicle carrying up to eight people, with an extra 2 dollars a head above eight. A Utah resident aged 65 or over pays 15 dollars, a motorcycle is 10 dollars, and walk-in or bike-in visitors pay 10 dollars per four people. Day use is valid for the date of purchase only rather than for a multi-day window. Resident annual permits are 125 dollars, or 65 dollars for a resident aged 65 and over. Those are the park's figures as of August 2026.
The park's own account is that in the late nineteenth century cowboys used the promontory as a natural corral, because it is joined to the mesa by a neck of rock only about thirty yards wide that could be fenced across. What is supposed to have happened to a band of horses left there afterwards varies between tellings, and the park presents that part as tradition rather than as documented record. The geography is the reliable half of the story: the neck really would make a corral.
About 32 miles and roughly 45 minutes, north on US-191 and then west on UT-313. The turnoff comes before the Canyonlands entrance, so the state park and the Island in the Sky district sit on the same road and make an efficient single day with no extra driving. There is no fuel on UT-313, so fill up in Moab. The park has a visitor center with water; the point itself has no services.
Yes, and you should book it. Kayenta and Wingate campsites run 60 dollars a night in the peak months of March, April, May, June, September and October and 50 dollars off season, while Wingate hike-in tent sites are 45 and 40. The yurts are 150 dollars a night with a lower rate of 100 dollars plus taxes on selected dates. Reservations go through 800-322-3770 and Reserve America up to four months ahead, and the park is typically full from March through November.
Yes, and it was the first Utah state park to be certified an International Dark Sky Park, in 2016. Canyonlands next door had been certified at gold tier on 31 August 2015 and Arches followed in 2019, which puts three certified parks within about forty minutes of one another. Dead Horse Point's advantage is the geometry: a mesa top with no settlement in the line of sight and a horizon that runs nearly the whole way round. Gates are open until 10pm year round.
A 16.6 mile network of singletrack running north from the visitor center over a mix of forest floor and slickrock, ridden clockwise and open to walkers as well. The loops nest: Intrepid is the shortest and easiest, Big Chief adds distance without much difficulty, and Twisted Tree is the technical end. In a region whose famous rides are a technical slickrock loop and a 7,000 foot alpine descent, this is the network an ordinary competent rider can enjoy without a survival plan. Bike rental is available in the park.
They are different rather than ranked. Dead Horse Point looks straight down onto a single tight meander of the Colorado from two thousand feet above it, which is intimate and immediately legible. Grand View Point at Island in the Sky looks out across three stacked levels of country toward the river confluence, which is bigger and harder to take in. They sit on the same road about twenty minutes apart, so doing both in one day is easy and neither makes the other redundant.
Solar evaporation ponds belonging to the potash operation on the river bench below, dyed blue to absorb more sunlight and speed evaporation. They are visible from the point and they surprise people, because the surrounding country reads as untouched. It is a useful corrective: this is worked landscape with a very good view over it, and the road serving those ponds is the same SR-279 that carries the Corona Arch trailhead, the petroglyph pullouts and the dinosaur track slab downstream of Moab.
Twenty dollars at the gate. A different number in town.
A view like that is what starts people reading Grand County listings, and the listings are where it turns specific: the zone, the water supplier, whether the address is inside the city at all, and what an economy built on visitation does to resale. Tell me the shape of it and I will pair you with a Grand County partner agent, taking the homework and the loan side myself.
Referral disclosure. Outside Southern Utah, I connect home sellers and buyers with partner agents I trust in their area. If you choose to work with an agent I refer, that agent's brokerage pays my brokerage (Real Broker, LLC) a referral fee. The fee comes out of the agent's compensation; it is not an added cost to you. You are always free to choose any agent you wish, and using a referred agent is never required.
One role per purchase, never both. How I work has the detail.