About this place
Dark Canyon starts high on the edge of Elk Ridge, at 8,800 feet, and ends at 3,700 feet in the desert above Lake Powell.
Two agencies look after most of the drainage: the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management.
The Forest Service manages the upper end as the 45,000 acre Dark Canyon Wilderness Area.
The Bureau of Land Management manages the lower end as the 62,000 acre Dark Canyon Primitive Area and Wilderness Study Area. It is a Special Recreation Management Area too.
The very bottom end lies in the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. The National Park Service runs that.
This area takes in the side canyons of Dark Canyon and the smaller canyons around them.
Fable Valley is a shallower canyon about eight miles long, north of Dark Canyon, and it is part of this area too.
The area also covers the Dark Canyon Plateau between the canyons. Up there you look down into the canyons from the rim.
North of Fable Valley is a smaller, rugged area managed as the Dark Canyon Natural Area.
Dark Canyon is very rugged. Many of the trails are hard work. Come prepared for extreme conditions.
The facts
- Cost
- Camping fee not confirmed
- Roads around it
- High clearance on most routes, though an ordinary car may manage some in dry weather. One needs four-wheel drive
- Type
- Open area. Camp anywhere within it
- Managed by
- Bureau of Land Management
Getting there
Four roads reach different parts of this area. Three of them are graded and may need up to six inches of ground clearance, depending on the state of the road. High clearance is advised on those three, though an ordinary car may manage them in dry weather.
The Sundance Trailhead, in the southwest, is reached from a road leaving State Highway 95 east of Hite.
The Woodenshoe Road reaches the southeastern part. It gives trailhead access into Dark Canyon on Forest Service land. Further west, on Bureau of Land Management land, there are long views into the canyon. It is reached from a road off State Highway 95 just east of Natural Bridges National Monument.
The North Long Point Road reaches the Dark Canyon Plateau, in the middle of the area. It has trailheads into Fable Valley on Bureau of Land Management land and into Dark Canyon on Forest Service land. Two roads lead to it. One is the South Cottonwood Road, off State Highway 95 west of Blanding. The other is the North Cottonwood Road, off the Needles Road west of Newspaper Rock.
The Beef Basin Road reaches the northern part, including a trailhead into Fable Valley. Only high clearance vehicles should attempt it, and four wheel drive is advised. It is reached from the North Cottonwood Road, off the Needles Road west of Newspaper Rock.
Coordinates 37.847473, -110.191101
Open in Google Maps Agency page
What is near here
There is another spot of ours within reach, and some better-known places further out.
- Cataract Canyon Directions
- Hite Crossing Bridge Directions
- Bears Ears National Monument Directions
- Bears Ears National Monument Directions
Every distance on this page is the driving distance. A short distance can still take a long time. The road may be closed for the season, covered in snow, or washed out. Many of these roads are dirt. Plan your route before you leave home. Out here there is often no phone signal to look it up on the way.
Nearest town and supplies
- Halls Crossing, UT Directions
- Blanding, UT Directions
Blanding is big enough that you’d normally expect fuel and somewhere to buy food. Nobody from here has been to check, so don’t count on it if you’re running low.
Have you been here?
Fees and access change, and the records do not always keep up. If you have been, tell us what you found.
Thank you, that is recorded. It helps the next person.
Add road notes for this site
The thing we cannot get from any government record is what the drive in is actually like. If you have done it, this is the most useful thing you can leave behind. We read everything before it appears, and we print a first name with it if you give one.
Thank you. A person will read it before it goes on the page.
Where this information comes from
The description on this page is ours. The facts in it, and the fee and facility details below it, come from the Bureau of Land Management’s own records, read in August 2026.