Kane Creek Canyon ATV Trail

This is one of my favorite trails.  This is a very difficult trail and will require some road building and hand holding your ATV down by others.  You will have to have a 4X4 ATV.  It offers some beautiful views of Kane Creek canyon.  It will take a good 8 hours round trip.  This trail starts at the parking lot on Kane Creek Road about 5 miles west of town.  On main street in Moab you will turn west at the McDonalds on Kane Creek road.  Continue west until there is a Y intersection.  Stay left and continue up pass the Moab Rim trail.  There is a large trailhead parking lot after the cattle guard on the right where the road turns from blacktop to dirt.  There is also several parking area's up the dirt road.  There are a few posted BLM fee camping area's up Kane Creek Canyon.  There is one camp ground before the dirt road and many on the dirt road.  If you are pulling a trailer beware that there is a steep/sharp S-Curve down the dirt road before the camping places.  Also there is the river you will have to go through at least once.  When I was there, there had been some good rain storms and some of the camping spots were washed out.

The road to Kane Creek Canyon turnoff is mostly graded.  From the parking lot you will follow Kane Creek Road going through the river two times.  There will be a fork in the road where there is a metal sign left up Kane Creek canyon and straight - right up to Hurrah Pass, Chicken Corners. 

Go Left if you dare up Kane Creek.  You will cross the river at least 25 times.  I didn't count them.  We were there at the end of October and there was a few crossings that were a few feet deep.  I have heard that at times the water can be up to your seat or higher.  When going through the river bottoms section be careful that the road ahead hasn't been washed out and it is a 3 foot drop to the river.  There was a few places we lost the trail in the river and had to find it.  There are some markers in the river bottoms to help you stay on the trail.

When you climb out of the river bottom the trail splits.  ATV trail splits left from the jeep trail that goes streight up the road.  At the split there is a level area that you can park.  The ATV trail goes down to the river where there was 2 drop offs of 3 or 4 feet that required us to build the road up.  This is where our guide book stopped.  You should walk down to the river and make sure you want to do it and that you can.  You can't turn around when your down the trail where it gets bad.  Most people should turn around here. 

If you continue on the trail you will go through the river and up a step bank on the other side of the river following along a cliff to a bridge.  After the bridge on your left is some great waterfalls.  You then meet back up with the jeep trail.

This is where there is a bunch of steep ledges that look like stairs with black rubber all over them.  Of course the stairs are not evenly spaced.  With some hand holding on the front of the ATV and the front wheels locked in you should make it up in low gear.  This is the last difficult spot except for a few steep river crossings.  You end up on Highway 191.

We were going to turn around where the guide book said to but didn't and ended up on 191.  We road on the edge of the road to the hole in the rock rest stop and then walked back to camp to get the extra truck from camp a half mile away.  You could park a vehicle at the end of Kane Creek Road off Highway 191, which is about 200 yards south of the hole in the rock and shuttle back.  Else turn around.