Coyote Buttes North, the one with the Wave
64 people a day · Lottery only · No walk up access
This is the permit everybody means. Coyote Buttes North caps entry at 64 people a day and there is no way in without one of those spots. They come from two separate systems.
Forty eight of the daily spots, or twelve groups, whichever limit is reached first, are issued through an advance lottery. That runs on Recreation.gov several months ahead of the date and it is entered from anywhere in the world. It is heavily oversubscribed.
The other sixteen spots, or four groups, come from a daily lottery, and this is the one that changes if you live here. You apply on a mobile device through the Recreation.gov app or a browser, and you have to be physically inside a geofence covering roughly two million acres around this corner of the Utah and Arizona border when you do it. The application window runs from six in the morning to six in the evening, two days before the date you want. Results go out that same evening, and winners have until eight the next morning to accept and pay. Permits are then collected in person the following morning, with a safety briefing that is not optional.
The walk in office in Kanab is gone. The daily lottery used to be drawn in person at a BLM office in town, and a lot of older guidance still says so. It is now entered on a phone from inside the geofence. If a page tells you to queue up in Kanab in the morning, it is out of date.
Coyote Buttes South, the quieter half
Separate permit · Lottery · Rough access
Coyote Buttes South is a different permit area with its own allocation, and it is a genuinely different experience: fewer people, less famous rock, and no single photograph everybody has already seen. It runs on its own advance and daily lotteries through the same system.
The catch is the driving. The access tracks on the south side are sand and they are harder than anything on the north side. Winning the permit and then discovering the vehicle will not get you to the trailhead is a specific and common way to waste a day. Ask about current conditions before you enter, not after you win.
Wire Pass and Buckskin Gulch
Day use permit · No lottery · Bought online
This is the good news in the whole system. The longest hikeable slot canyon anywhere does not require a lottery. Day hikers into Wire Pass and Buckskin Gulch buy an inexpensive day use permit, priced per person and also per dog, and that is the whole process.
One change worth knowing: these used to be paid in cash at a trailhead box and are now bought through Recreation.gov before you go. Overnight trips in Buckskin and Paria Canyon are a separate and much more limited system.
The road decides more often than the permit does. House Rock Valley Road, which serves Wire Pass and both Coyote Buttes areas, is not routinely maintained and is impassable when wet. It is frequently fine for a normal car in dry conditions and genuinely dangerous after rain. The BLM publishes a road condition report and the Paria Ranger Station will tell you what it looks like today.
Coral Pink Sand Dunes, and other paid but simple ground
State park day use · No lottery · Turn up and pay
The dunes west of town are a Utah state park and they work the way state parks work: a day use fee charged per vehicle, with a reduced rate for Utah seniors, and no reservation needed to visit for the day. Camping there is reserved separately and opens on a rolling window several months ahead.
Zion, Bryce and the Grand Canyon all charge their own entrance fees and each runs its own systems on top of that, including the Angels Landing permit lottery on the Zion side. Those are covered on the three parks guide rather than here.
Everything that needs nothing at all
Free · No paperwork · Year round
It is worth saying plainly, because the permit reputation puts people off: most of what you can walk to around Kanab is free and unrationed. The trail from the end of 100 East to the rim above town, the city loops on K Hill and through Tom's Canyon, Jackson Flat Reservoir on the south edge, and Belly of the Dragon up near Mount Carmel all cost nothing and need no arranging.
The lotteries cover two specific permit areas. They are not the price of entry to the region.
Three things this page will not tell you
- Current fees. Every number on Recreation.gov moves, and a page that prints them confidently is wrong within a year. The systems are stable; the prices are not.
- Your odds on a given day. Entries vary enormously by season and by day of the week, and anyone quoting you a precise percentage is guessing. What is true is that the advance lottery for Coyote Buttes North is heavily oversubscribed and the daily one is worse.
- Whether the road is passable this morning. Nothing written in advance can answer that. The BLM road report and the Paria Ranger Station can.
