Red Mountain Trails

Trail information

Difficult

Out & Back

No width limit

some rocky areas

Sand Trail

Single Track

50" Vehicle

S x S

Full Size

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Steinaker State Park
All OHVs: 50″ ATVs, UTVs & MCs and full-sized 4x4s
Mostly sandy and some rocky areas. The trail gets progressively rougher and more difficult as we progress up Red Mountain.
Most Trails have adequate signage
The closest medical help is Ashley Regional Medical Cente 150 W 100 N, Vernal, UT 84078 Dial 911 for Emergencies or (435) 789-3342

Uintah County Sheriff’s Office 641 E 300 S, Vernal, UT 84078 Dial 911 for Emergencies or (435) 789-2511

Utah Highway Patrol Dial 911 641 East, 300 South, Suite 300
Vernal, Utah 84078 (435) 781-6740

Ashley National Forest 355 North Vernal Avenue Vernal, UT 8407 435-789-1181
The Red Mountain trails are located in Uintah County approximately 8 miles north of Vernal at Steinaker Lake State Park and 215 miles east of Salt Lake City. The trailhead (such as it is) is located at 40.5337859,-109.5289057, just 1,800 feet west of Hwy 91 on 301 (the road to Steinaker Park). This is about the only free parking in the area. You can, of course, pay the fee and use Steinaker State Parks facilities or even camp there.

While we rode approximately 32 miles, there are many many more miles of trail in the area. It will take you 3-4 hours to explore this system depending on your driving and whether you take some of the side trails available. There are no services (unless you enter Steinaker State Park) so stock up on anything you need before leaving Vernal.
Maps

Trail Route

Red Mountain Trails gaia

We recommend to download the GAIA App on your mobile device.

You can view and download the route from GAIA as well as see photos with their location geotagged on the trail.

360 Street View

Click “View 360 Map” to explore the trail in Google Street View and “See the Trail Before You Ride the Trail.”

Flyover Map

 Experience a bird’s-eye view of the trail to get a better understanding of elevation changes and the surrounding terrain.

Download Route

The GPX or KML files are available for you to download and use on your preferred app or device. 

Key Points

Within our Key Points you will discover trail head parking, trail markers, points of interests, intersections as well as terrain and obstacles.

Click on the links below to reveal images and information

Here is the parking area where we unloaded. There is no fee. It has plenty room for big rigs to turn around. There are no facilities. NOTE: You need to be street legal to use the road from here to the actual trailhead. If you pay the fee and enter Steinaker State Park, the section of pavement from the park entrance to the trailhead is designated as an OHV route for non-street legal access to the trails.
The trailhead is an unmarked road leaving the pavement. There is no parking here and no facilities. Note that the designate OHV route begins here and goes to Steinaker State Park.
Five minutes into our ride and we already missed a turn and hit our first dead-end. No worries, it is all part of the fun.
While much of the trail is sand, there are occasional ledges, nothing particularly difficult until we start climbing Red Mountain.
We opted to head towards the hills as quickly as we could. We think you will agree it was a good choice.
When cool rock formations beckon, we answer the call.
The trail drops into the bottom of the canyon and slowly narrows until we gave up trying to do trail maintenance and record 360 tours. In a 50″ UTV or ATV, you might be able to continue, but we gave up in the ranger and backtracked. As you may note in the GPS track we will eventually come within a few hundred yards of this position later in the day. Does anyone want to organize a tree-trimming party?
Looping around to head up Red Mountain is a fun track of sand.
The road gets progressively rougher and more difficult as we progress up Red Mountain and is marked most difficult.
We know it is tempting to ‘hi-point’ or take the wider trail routes. Please don’t. This is the kind of trail widening that bothers some people and could lead to trail closures as it is used as evidence of abuse.
There are a few tangents turns like this one. We figured out they end pretty quickly. Stay to the left.
If your beginner and intermediate riders haven’t turned back yet they might consider it now. We didn’t make it much further ourselves.
At this point, the trail turns into a large boulder and ledges field — just the kind of thing expert riders seek out. While the Ranger could have made it further, we had no other ride home or way to get immediate help. Maybe if we had a few more rigs on this trip we would have been tempted. But, it seemed prudent to call it a day. Next time Red Mountain, next time.
trail video

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