By Scott Buehler, Moving UtahThe first panels, about twenty miles in
Roughly mile 20 · Free · Year round on pavement
For the first twenty miles the canyon gives you almost nothing. Soldier Creek Road climbs away from Wellington through open country, crosses a divide and drops into the drainage, and the walls only start to close in as the mileage builds. The first documented panel sits at roughly 20.45 miles from the junction, on a steep bank a hundred feet above the road and largely hidden by trees.
That opening stretch is the single most useful thing to understand about a Nine Mile day. This is not a canyon you arrive at, it is a canyon you drive into, and the rock art is spread across the far half of it rather than the near half. Anybody who turns around at fifteen miles because nothing has happened yet has missed the entire point of the trip.
Reset the trip meter at the junction
The distances on this page are rough ones, counted from where Soldier Creek Road leaves US-191 beside the Chevron at Wellington, and there is no other reliable reference out there. Signage exists but it is sparse and some pullouts are easy to overshoot at speed. Zero the odometer at the turn, drive slowly, and treat the numbers as a guide, because your phone will stop helping within a few miles.
Much of the canyon floor is private ranch land
This is working country as well as an archaeological district, and the pattern of ownership along the bottom is a mix of private, state and federal ground rather than one agency's. What that means in practice is simple: stay on the road, use the designated pullouts, do not cross fences, and do not treat an open gate as an invitation. The sites that are set up for visitors are signed. The ones that are not are somebody's property.
The details
Getting there
East on US-6 and US-191 to Wellington, north on Soldier Creek Road from beside the Chevron, then about twenty miles up the paved canyon road.
Before you go
- Zero the trip meter at the US-191 junction. Every published mileage is measured from there.
- The first twenty miles look empty. That is normal, not a wrong turn.
- Stay on the road. Much of the canyon bottom is private ranch land.
- There is no fuel, water or shop anywhere in the canyon. Fill up in Price.
- Mobile coverage stops early. Download offline maps before you leave town.
Cottonwood Glen, the green pocket at mile 27
About mile 28 · Free · Spring through autumn · Directions
About 28 miles in, the canyon opens into a green pocket of cottonwoods and the Bureau of Land Management has put a day use area in it. Cottonwood Glen carries a picnic area, restrooms and a historic homestead, and in forty six miles of canyon it is one of only two places with a toilet. That alone makes it the natural halfway stop, and it is where most people eat.
It is also a reminder of what this canyon was in the century before it became an archaeological destination. People ranched and farmed along this bottom, hauled freight up it, and left buildings in it, and the homestead on the site is part of the interpretive story rather than a ruin somebody forgot about. The road you are driving was a freight route long before it carried visitors.
Plan the day around the two toilets
Cottonwood Glen at about 28 miles and the Daddy Canyon trailhead at about 44 miles are the developed stops with facilities. That is it, across a canyon you may be in for six hours. It is an unglamorous piece of planning and it is the one that most often decides whether a group enjoys the drive or endures it, particularly with children or anybody who does not fancy the alternative in open country.
The shade is worth timing for
A cottonwood pocket in a desert canyon is a genuinely different microclimate, and on a July afternoon the difference between eating here and eating at a bare pullout is considerable. Aim to be here in the middle of the day rather than passing through it early. There is no water tap, so the shade is the amenity and everything else comes out of the car.
The details
Getting there
Signed off the main canyon road on the paved section, with a parking area, picnic tables, restrooms and an interpreted historic homestead on the site.
Before you go
- One of only two developed stops with restrooms in 46 miles. Plan accordingly.
- There is no drinking water here. Carry everything you will need for the day.
- Pack out everything you bring in. There is no rubbish collection in the canyon.
- Facilities can be seasonal. Ring the BLM Price Field Office on 435-636-3600 to confirm.
- Fire restrictions apply in a dry year. Check before you light anything at a picnic site.
Balanced Rock, the landmark you cannot miss
About mile 32 · Free · Year round on pavement · Directions
At about 32 miles a large block of stone sits on a narrow pedestal directly above the road, and it has been photographed by every person who has driven this canyon since cameras existed. It also answers to Pig Head Rock depending on who you ask and which direction you are looking from, which tells you something about how informal the naming out here is.
It earns a stop for a practical reason as much as a scenic one. It is the clearest single landmark in a canyon where the walls start to look alike after an hour, and it is a good mental marker that you are two thirds of the way to the far end. The pullout is obvious and the formation is right there, so this is a five minute stop rather than a walk.
Use it as a checkpoint, not just a photograph
By this point most drivers have lost track of how far in they are and how much daylight the return leg needs. Balanced Rock at about 32 miles means the Daddy Canyon complex is about twelve miles further and the Great Hunt Panel about fourteen. Work backwards from that: reaching the far end and returning to Price is a long day, and the canyon is a poor place to be improvising after dark.
The geology is the same story as the coal
The rock the canyon is cut into is the same Cretaceous sequence that produced the coal seams the county was named for, and the same sequence that builds the escarpment on the skyline back in the valley. A balanced block is simply a harder cap sitting on softer rock that eroded out from under it, which is the process running everywhere along this drainage, just usually less photogenically.
The details
Getting there
Directly above the paved canyon road at about 32 miles from the highway junction, with a pullout beneath it. It is visible well before you reach it.
Before you go
- Park in the pullout rather than on the road. This is a working freight and ranch route.
- Use it as a time check. The far end of the canyon is still fourteen miles on.
- Do not climb on or under the formation.
- Morning light and late light both work here; midday flattens it.
- There are no facilities at this stop. The nearest are back at Cottonwood Glen.
The Daddy Canyon complex
About mile 44 · Free · Spring through autumn · Directions
At about 44 miles a side canyon opens on the north and the Bureau of Land Management has developed it as the canyon's main walking stop. Daddy Canyon has a parking area, a picnic area, restrooms and trailheads, and the walk is around a mile that follows the cliff base past panels rather than climbing anywhere. It is the one place on this drive where you get out and stay out.
What is on the walls here is the reason to do it. The panels along this stretch include both Fremont work and Ute work, which is the distinction most visitors have never been told to look for, and the interpretive material on site is the right place to learn it rather than a page like this one. Rasmussen's Cave sits at roughly 44 miles on a short dirt spur just before it.
Two traditions, and one of them belongs to current neighbours
Fremont people made much of the older work in this canyon and Fremont culture is studied archaeologically, so past tense is correct for it. Ute work here is different in kind and in age, and the Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah and Ouray Reservation is a present day nation whose reservation lies over the head of this drainage in the Uinta Basin. The canyon is not a closed chapter for anybody, and reading it as one is the most common mistake visitors make.
Everything you have been told about interpretation is somebody's guess
Nobody can hand you a translation of a panel, and the confident readings that circulate online are almost always invention presented as fact. The interpretive signage on site is what the managing agency stands behind, and where it declines to say what something means, that is information rather than a gap. Look for a long time, photograph from where you are standing, and be comfortable not knowing.
The details
Getting there
Signed on the north side of the main canyon road, with a parking area, picnic area and restrooms at the trailhead. The walk is roughly a mile along the cliff base.
Before you go
- Do not touch, chalk, wet or rub any panel. Skin oils damage the surface permanently.
- Take nothing off the ground and leave nothing on it, including cairns.
- The second of only two developed restroom stops in the canyon.
- There is no shade for much of the walk and no water at all. Carry your own.
- Read the interpretive signage rather than the internet. It is what the agency stands behind.
The Great Hunt Panel at the far end
About mile 46 · Free · Spring through autumn · Directions
At about 46 miles from the highway junction there is a well marked pullout and a short trail, and at the end of it is the image that represents this canyon everywhere it is represented. The Great Hunt Panel shows a line of about thirty bighorn sheep with hunters carrying bows, and one horned anthropomorphic figure above the center of the composition that has attracted more interpretation than any other figure in the canyon.
It is worth understanding what makes it exceptional and it is not just the size. It is a composed scene rather than a scatter of separate figures, which is rare, and it has survived in remarkable condition on an accessible wall. Two more major sites sit within half a mile of it: the Fremont Village pullout, where a trail climbs to the remains of a village, and Big Buffalo.
The last mile carries three of the best sites
Fremont Village, Big Buffalo and the Great Hunt are effectively one stop with three walks, and together they are what the whole drive is for. Budget an hour and a half for the group rather than treating them as three quick pullouts. If daylight is short, the Great Hunt is the one to prioritise and the other two are the ones to leave.
This is where the return leg decision gets made
You are 46 miles up a canyon and roughly 51 from Price. Turning round here is a two hour drive home on a road you know. Continuing north on the Gate Canyon connector toward Myton is an entirely different proposition on dirt, and the section below says why. Make that decision here, in daylight, with a look at the sky, rather than a further ten miles in when the options have narrowed.
The details
Getting there
A marked pullout on the canyon road with a short trail to the panel. The Fremont Village pullout and Big Buffalo sit within half a mile back down the road.
Before you go
- Photograph from the trail. Do not touch the panel or approach beyond where the route goes.
- Allow two hours to get back to Price from here, and more if you stop again.
- There is no water, no toilet and no shade at this stop.
- Treat any online interpretation of the figures as somebody's guess, not as fact.
- Decide here whether you are returning the way you came. Beyond this the road changes character.
How to visit it right
Look, photograph, and put nothing on the rock
There is no ranger in this canyon. Whether these sites survive the next century is decided entirely by the behavior of people who drive in alone and are not being watched.
| Do | Do not | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Photograph from the trail or pullout | Touch, chalk, wet or rub any panel | Skin oils and applied material degrade the rock surface and the varnish permanently |
| Stay on the road and the marked routes | Cross fences or drive onto unsigned ground | Much of the canyon bottom is private ranch land as well as an archaeological district |
| Leave artifacts and flakes where they lie | Pocket anything, or gather finds into a pile | An object out of its context loses most of what it can tell anybody, including you |
| Read the interpretive signs on site | Repeat online readings of what a figure means | Nobody can translate these panels; confident interpretation is almost always invention |
| Drive slowly on any unpaved section | Raise dust near panels | Road dust settling on rock art is a documented concern here and the reason for a formal agreement |
| Pack everything out, including waste | Rely on facilities beyond the two day use areas | There are exactly two developed stops with restrooms in 46 miles |
None of the above is unusual for a rock art district. What is unusual here is the density: over a thousand documented sites along one road, most of them unfenced and unsupervised, in a canyon that anybody can drive into for nothing on any day of the year.
The honest road warning
The loop is real, and it is not a loop for every vehicle
Past the far end of the canyon, a connector climbs out through Gate Canyon and drops north toward Myton in the Uinta Basin, which on a map looks like an obvious way to turn an out and back into a loop. On the ground it is a different road entirely. The canyon route you have been driving is paved. Gate Canyon is dirt, it wants high clearance, and it is impassable when wet.
Wet here does not only mean rain falling on you. A storm that passed through hours earlier, or overnight, is enough to turn the surface greasy and to put water in the crossings, and there is nobody out there to tell you that before you commit. This is the classic way that a pleasant day in a canyon becomes an expensive recovery, and the recovery is a long way from a tow truck.
The Bureau of Land Management Price Field Office is the authority on all of it, at 125 South 600 West in Price on 435-636-3600. Ring them before you go, not after you are committed, and ask specifically about Gate Canyon rather than about the canyon generally, because the two halves of this route are in completely different conditions much of the year.
Say plainly what a passenger car can do here. An ordinary car handles the paved main canyon road in dry conditions for its full length, including every site on this page. It should not be on the Gate Canyon connector, and it should not be on the dirt spurs after rain. If your plan is the full loop to Myton, that plan needs high clearance, dry weather, a spare you can actually change, water for longer than you expect, and somebody who knows where you went. If it does not have all of those, drive back out the way you came in.