Sand Flats

Sand Flats Recreation Area covers 9,000 acres on the Colorado Plateau immediately east of Moab in Grand County, Utah, managed jointly by Grand County and the Bureau of Land Management in a cooperative arrangement that makes it one of the few jointly managed OHV-and-trail recreation areas in the national BLM system. The Slickrock Trail, a 9.6-mile loop marked with white painted dots across the bare Navajo Sandstone, is the park's most internationally recognized feature: one of the first and most technically challenging mountain bike trails in the American West, it has inspired imitation across the globe. The OHV trail system shares the same slickrock terrain across approximately 30 miles of designated routes for ATVs, dirt bikes, and capable 4x4 vehicles, the Navajo Sandstone surface that gives the area its name provides exceptional tire adhesion on dry days and dangerous slickness when wet. Riding on the slickrock at Sand Flats is a genuinely technical experience: the surface has no soft-soil margin for error, off-camber sections drop into bowl formations, and the elevation changes on the Moab Rim are steep enough to require both mechanical capability and rider skill. The Grand County and Moab location places Sand Flats within the most developed OHV service corridor in the Colorado Plateau: Moab's full commercial infrastructure supports multi-day trips. Vehicle entrance fees apply per the Grand County fee schedule. Contact the Moab Field Office for current conditions (435-259-2100).