Summer Picnic - Nine Mile Canyon

A URARA tradition is a summer picnic. Join other URARA members for a wonderful weekend in Nine Mile Canyon, which National Geographic described as Utah's "Louvre."  Nine Mile Canyon has hundreds of rock art sites. Many of them conveniently located close to the road that travels through the canyon. Most sites will be pecked with some painted images.

Difficulty: We will mostly be accessing sites close to the road. There will be short walks along some ill-defined trails with minimal elevation change. A few sites will have longer walking (less than half a mile) and an elevation change of about 100 feet. Over the day we will stop at a large number of sites and the overall distance and elevation change will add up.

Vehicle: The road through the canyon is good. It is paved for most of the way but we will also be taking high quality dirt roads. Any road vehicle with decent clearance should not have troubles. Parking is not good along the Nine Mile Canyon road and we will encourage people to carpool to minimize vehicles.

General Issues: The canyon can be very hot in the summer. Please bring appropriate sun gear. This link will provide a weather report for nearby Wellington, UT. Good binoculars and telephoto lenses will be helpful. There are no stores or gas stations within the canyon so bring food and water to last the weekend. Nine Mile Canyon is not nine miles long. We will be doing a lot of driving. Have a full tank of gas before you turn off the highway to come into the canyon.

Our base of operation will be the Nine Mile Ranch in Nine Mile Canyon. This google map link will help you find the ranch. There are no other accommodations within the canyon. Camping is not allowed anywhere else in the canyon. If you prefer to stay in a hotel the nearest locations are Wellington or Price. Both will require long drives into the canyon to meet the group.

URARA has two group locations reserved at the ranch that have multiple campsites for Fri (Aug 26) and Sat (Aug 27) nights. That should allow for about 15 couples to camp. Registrants after that will be notified and you will need to make campsite reservations directly with the ranch. Additional campsites may be available or you can stay in a cabin or a room in the ranch house. Go the web page to make reservations: 9mileranch.com. Campsites are $15 per night. Cabins are $80 to $130 per night and are different sizes so you might want to share with friends or family.

Field trips into the canyon are scheduled for Saturday, and Sunday. We will plan departure times from Nine Mile Ranch at 8:30 am each day.The ranch is doing a barbecue on Saturday night for $20 per person. If you wish to participate you need to do so as part of the registration process so that we can give accurate numbers to the ranch.