Dead Horse Point State Park in Utah with a Dog

We lived in Utah for four years and somehow never got around to visiting any of its national parks. Instead, we opted for Utah’s state parks, which are an amazing way to experience the state’s breathtaking landscapes with your dog – plus there are generally fewer crowds. One of them, Dead Horse Point State Park, is one we’d recommend to anyone in the Moab area.

(Our feeling was that if we were going to plan an outdoor adventure, we wanted to bring our dogs along as much as possible. Unfortunately, none of the state’s national parks made it on our dog-friendly list!)

Our Review of Dead Horse Point State Park

At 5,900′ of elevation and only (“only”) a max elevation gain of 1,174′ per AllTrails, Dead Horse Point State Park is a great way to explore Moab without overdoing it. It’s great for newer day hikers and more experienced ones alike, and it’s one of the places in Utah we would recommend to someone coming from sea level.

What we love about Dead Horse Point:

• The stunning views overlooking the Colorado River
• All of its hiking trails are dog-friendly
• Easy-to-moderate terrain
• Dogs can stay at the campground
• The park is open year-round
• Incredible stargazing (in fact, Dead Horse Point is an International Dark Sky Park, which you can read more about here)

Camping

Dogs are allowed at both the Kayenta and Wingate Campgrounds. There are drive-up spots with electrical hook-up locations, flush toilets, a dump station, and small shade shelters at both campgrounds.

For a little more privacy, there are 11 hike-in, tent-only campsites at Wingate Campground.

Dead Horse Point also features yurt lodging, but unfortunately dogs are not allowed in or around the yurts at this time.

We opted to stay at a dispersed campsite away from the park, but you can find more detailed info about the camping experience here.

Map

Pulled from Google, here’s a glimpse of both the zoomed out and zoomed in views for Dead Horse Point State Park. Click here to open in Google Maps.

For point of reference, Dead Horse Point is about 30 minutes from Moab proper and 4 hours from Salt Lake City. You can get here in about 40 minutes from Corona Arch, another popular dog-friendly destination in Moab.

We’ve also included an image of the Dead Horse Point park brochure with trails – find the whole thing here or click on the image below.

Best Time of Year to Visit

Moab is a desert and there’s not much shade at all at Dead Horse Point. For that reason, we’d suggest going late winter (late February into March) or late fall (late October into November).

We chanced things going in June, which was uncharacteristically rather cool. Peak summer is still a great time to visit Moab, but in-town attractions and the national parks will undoubtedly be packed and that generally flows into the state parks too. If you visit in summer, plan on doing a sunrise hike or going closer to sunset and staying for some stargazing.

The height of winter can be pleasant during the day, but not ideal for camping unless you don’t mind camping in the teens or even lower.

Rules

• Dogs must remain on leash – this is especially important since there are many sharp drop-offs and small critters scurrying about
• Dogs aren’t allowed to join you on mountain biking trails
• For safety reasons such as extreme heat, dogs are never allowed to be left in vehicles
• And as we mentioned above, dogs aren’t allowed in yurts or even in vehicles outside of the yurts

One Tip

Still water is pretty common in parts of the park, especially in grooves in the slick rock where rainwater collects. If your dog tends to lap at these puddles, consider discussing the pros and cons of the leptospirosis vaccine with your veterinarian. (More information can be found on the American Veterinary Medical Association website.) We personally decided to vaccinate our dogs for this and wanted to mention it since stagnant water puddles are so common here.

Frequently Asked Questions

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