The rock itself Moab
Nine thousand acres, a 1969 motorcycle route, and a fee that funds it all
Slickrock, and the Sand Flats.
A 10.5 mile painted loop over Navajo Sandstone that was laid out in 1969 for lightweight motorcycles and found by mountain bikers twenty years later, sitting inside 9,000 county-managed acres that run entirely on their own gate income, with a practice loop that is shorter and no easier at all.
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
The rock is the amenity, and the county charges for it.
Slickrock is a misnomer that stuck. The name came from iron-shod horses and wagon wheels, which slid on the bare sandstone; a rubber tyre or a rubber sole grips it remarkably well, which is the whole basis of the riding and driving culture around Moab. The rock in question is mostly Navajo Sandstone, ancient wind-blown dune fields turned to stone and now weathered into domes, fins and bowls.
The centre of it is the Sand Flats Recreation Area, 9,000 acres immediately east of town, managed by Grand County in partnership with the Bureau of Land Management since 1995 and drawing more than 250,000 visitors a year. It is unusual in one way that matters: it is self-sustaining, running its whole operating budget from the fees it collects, and taking no Grand County tax money at all.
The signature is the Slickrock Bike Trail, 10.5 miles of painted route over rolling sandstone. What almost nobody realises about it is that it was not built for bicycles. Dick Wilson laid it out in 1969 for motorcycles, specifically the then-new lightweight Honda Trail 90, and the Moab Times-Independent covered the proposal on 27 March 1969 under the headline "Proposed New Slickrock Trail Would Provide Thrills for Trail Bikers."
Sand Flats at a glance
9,000
acres of recreation area east of town
1969
the year the Slickrock Trail was laid out, for motorcycles
10.5 mi
the main loop, with a practice loop that is no easier
140
first come campsites, plus six group sites
The trail that made the town
A motorcycle route from 1969 that a bicycle boom found twenty years later.
The sequence is worth getting right, because it is usually told backwards. Moab in the 1960s was a uranium town with a lot of bare rock and a lot of people with motorcycles. Wilson's 1969 route was for those machines, and the trail was signed, painted and used for over a decade before mountain bikes existed as a mass product. When they arrived, riders discovered that the same painted dashes across the same sandstone made for a riding experience that had no equivalent anywhere else.
That discovery is what turned Moab from a mining town whose mining had gone into a recreation town, and the Slickrock Trail is the specific thing that did it. The Practice Loop, a short spur near the start, exists for exactly the reason its name suggests, with one important qualification: it is shorter but it is not easier. It is every bit as steep and technical as the full circuit, which makes it a genuinely honest test rather than a gentle introduction.
Riding it well is a different skill from riding dirt well. The rock offers enormous grip, so the limiting factor becomes the gradient rather than traction, and the correct technique on both the climbs and the drops is closer to trials riding than to cross-country. Plenty of strong riders find the first mile humbling. Turning back after the Practice Loop is a legitimate outcome and always has been.
The rest of the network, which is where most riders should be
Moab has well over a hundred miles of singletrack and only a fraction of it is technical slickrock. Klondike Bluffs to the north mixes dirt and rock with dinosaur tracks embedded in the trail. Klonzo is a compact network of flowing intermediate loops. Navajo Rocks north of town is the one a lot of visiting riders end up liking most, and the Moab Brand Trails carry a graded set from beginner up. Any of those is a better first day than the Slickrock Trail.
The Whole Enchilada, which is the other extreme
From Burro Pass in the Manti-La Sal at 11,200 feet, the Whole Enchilada descends 26.5 miles to the Colorado River at about 4,000 feet, more than 7,000 feet of drop across six named sections: Burro Pass, Hazard County, Kokopelli, Upper Porcupine Singletrack, Lower Porcupine Singletrack and Porcupine Rim. The alpine top opens 1 July at the earliest and closes with the first snow, usually in September or early October, so shuttle operators drop riders at whatever the highest accessible point is that week.
A route cut for Honda Trail 90s in 1969 became, twenty years later, the reason a uranium town has bike shops.
What Sand Flats costs
A county fee system that pays for itself and nothing else does.
Sand Flats runs on its own gate. These are the figures listed by the managing agencies as of August 2026, and they are worth reading before you arrive with a federal pass in the glovebox.
| What it covers | Cost | |
|---|---|---|
| Private vehicle pass | Seven days of day use in the recreation area | 10 dollars |
| Bicycle or motorcycle | Seven days of day use | 5 dollars |
| Annual pass | A year of day use for the holder and passengers | 35 dollars |
| Camping | Per night per vehicle, first come and first served | 20 dollars |
| Group campsites | Six sites, reserved through Recreation.gov | Varies by site |
| Federal passes | Not honoured, except the Access Pass | Not applicable |
There are 140 first-come campsites with a picnic table and fire ring each, pit toilets nearby, no hookups and no drinking water. The area takes no Grand County tax money and runs entirely on this income.
The self-funding arrangement is the part worth understanding, because it explains the condition of the place. Every toilet emptied, every campsite maintained, every sign replaced and every ranger hour on 9,000 acres carrying a quarter of a million visitors a year comes out of a ten dollar vehicle pass and a twenty dollar campsite. When people grumble at the booth about paying a county fee on top of a national park pass, that is what the money does.
The camping is genuinely good and it is genuinely basic. First come and first served means arriving on a Friday afternoon in April with no plan is optimistic. Pit toilets and no water means bringing everything, including what you will wash with. In exchange you are camping on slickrock benches minutes from town with the trails out the door, which is a trade a lot of people take repeatedly.
Season, heat and ice
The rock decides when this is a good idea and when it is not.
There is no shade anywhere on the Slickrock Trail and the sandstone stores and radiates heat, which makes a July afternoon on it a genuinely dangerous proposition rather than an uncomfortable one. The seasons are spring and autumn. In summer it is a first-light ride and nothing else, and the sensible alternative is to go up: the Whole Enchilada's alpine sections exist in the same month at eleven thousand feet.
Winter is the surprise, in both directions. South-facing rock dries fast and rides beautifully in low winter sun with nobody on it. North-facing rock holds ice and snowmelt long after everything else is dry, and ice on slickrock gives no warning at all before it stops giving grip. That combination on the same loop, an hour apart, is how winter riders here get hurt.
The other seasonal rule concerns the ground you are not on. Cryptobiotic soil crust, the dark knobbly living surface between the rock, takes decades to form and is destroyed by a single footprint or tyre track. On slickrock it is not an issue because you are on bare rock. Off it, the rule is to stay on rock, on trail, or in a sandy wash, and never on the crust.
Sharing it with engines
The Slickrock Trail is legally open to motorcycles because that is what it was built for, and the wider Sand Flats area carries close to thirty miles of jeep trail including Hell's Revenge and Fins and Things running within earshot. This is not a wilderness experience and it was never sold as one. Expect engines, give way early on blind rock rolls, and note that the 4x4 traffic peaks hard in the Easter Jeep Safari week each spring.
Ten miles on slickrock is not ten miles on dirt, and the water calculation people bring here is usually wrong. The Slickrock Trail's 10.5 miles include sustained steep climbing and descending on a surface with no shade, no water and no shortcut back. Riders regularly plan it as a two hour outing and take four or five. Carry considerably more water than the distance suggests, start early enough that finishing late is survivable, and tell somebody the plan. The rock is beautiful and it is also an oven with excellent grip.
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 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 guideThe state park
Dead Horse Point
A state park 2,000 feet above a gooseneck, 20 dollars in, booked solid March to November.
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
Slickrock, answered.
Because it was slippery for the people who named it. The bare Navajo Sandstone gave no purchase to iron-shod horses or iron-tyred wagon wheels, which slid on it, and the name stuck from that era. Rubber behaves completely differently: a bicycle tyre or a walking sole grips the same rock remarkably well, which is the entire basis of the riding and driving culture around Moab. The rock itself is ancient wind-blown dune fields turned to stone and weathered into domes, fins and bowls.
The main loop is 10.5 miles of painted route over rolling sandstone, and it is hard in a way the distance does not convey. Grip is not the limiting factor; the gradient is, and the climbs and drops are steeper than most riders attempt on dirt. Plan four to five hours rather than two, carry far more water than ten miles suggests, and expect the technique to feel closer to trials riding than cross-country. There is no shade at any point and no shortcut back.
No, and this is the most useful thing to know before starting. The Practice Loop is a short spur near the beginning of the main trail and it is every bit as steep and technical as the full circuit, just less of it. That makes it an honest test rather than a gentle introduction: ride it, see how it goes, and treat turning round afterwards as a legitimate result. Plenty of capable dirt riders discover that slickrock asks for a different skill set entirely.
In 1969, and not for bicycles. Dick Wilson laid the route out for motorcycles, specifically the then-new lightweight Honda Trail 90, and the Moab Times-Independent covered the proposal on 27 March 1969 under the headline "Proposed New Slickrock Trail Would Provide Thrills for Trail Bikers." The trail was signed and ridden by motorcyclists for more than a decade before mountain bikes arrived as a mass product and riders discovered what the same painted route did on a bicycle. It remains legally open to motorcycles.
As listed by the managing agencies in August 2026, a private vehicle pass is 10 dollars for seven days, a bicycle or motorcycle is 5 dollars for seven days, and an annual pass is 35 dollars. Camping is 20 dollars per night per vehicle. Most federal passes are not honoured here, with the Federal Recreational Lands Access Pass the exception, so an America the Beautiful pass will not get you through the gate. Sand Flats is managed by Grand County in partnership with the Bureau of Land Management.
Yes, at 140 first-come first-served campsites at 20 dollars a night per vehicle, plus six group campsites reservable through Recreation.gov. Each site has a picnic table and a fire ring, with pit toilets nearby, no hookups and no drinking water anywhere in the area. First come means arriving on a spring or autumn weekend afternoon without a fallback is optimistic. In exchange you are camping on slickrock benches minutes from town with the trails immediately out the door.
A 26.5 mile descent from Burro Pass in the Manti-La Sal National Forest at 11,200 feet down to the Colorado River at about 4,000 feet, more than 7,000 feet of drop, made up of six named sections: Burro Pass, Hazard County, Kokopelli, Upper Porcupine Singletrack, Lower Porcupine Singletrack and Porcupine Rim. It is an advanced ride with steep sustained descending, large obstacles and some significant drops. The alpine sections open on 1 July at the earliest and close with the snow, usually in September or early October.
Almost anywhere other than the Slickrock Trail. Klondike Bluffs to the north mixes dirt and rock and has dinosaur tracks embedded in the trail surface. Klonzo is a compact set of flowing intermediate loops. Navajo Rocks is the network a lot of visiting riders end up preferring. The Moab Brand Trails carry a graded set from beginner upward, and Dead Horse Point's 16.6 mile Intrepid system is the friendliest riding within an hour. The Slickrock Trail is a goal, not a first day.
Not in the middle of the day. The sandstone stores and radiates heat, there is no shade on the Slickrock Trail at any point, and July highs in the valley average near 99 degrees with many days above 100. In summer this is a first-light ride and nothing else. Spring and autumn are the seasons. In winter the surprise is ice: north-facing rock holds it long after everything else has dried, and it gives no warning at all before it stops giving grip.
The trails are out the door. The parcel is the question.
Living where the riding begins at the end of the street is a real proposition here, and it comes with a restrictive rental ordinance, thin and expensive supply, and a wage base built on visitation. Give me the outline and I will introduce a Grand County partner agent for everything on the ground, keeping the research and the financing on my side of the file.
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.
Estimates only, never a commitment. How I work explains the two roles.