Trails Utah

08/21/2026

Free entry to all National Parks is coming up on August 25 in celebration of the 110th birthday of the National Park Service!

Planning a trip to one of Utah's Mighty 5 (or any National Park)? We've rounded up all of the 2026 free entrance days, plus the recent policy changes, here 👇

https://trailsutah.org/news/free-national-park-days/

08/19/2026

🌱 We're heading back to Ferguson Canyon BST for Round 2 of w**d mitigation this Saturday (8/22)!

Join Trails Utah + Cottonwood Canyons Foundation for a morning of w**d mitigation at the Ferguson Canyon section of Bonneville Shoreline Trail (BST).

Grab some gloves, spend a morning outside, and help care for the trails we love.

Register here: https://cottonwoodcanyons.org/forms/trail26vol/
*select August 22nd at end of registration

08/18/2026

Shout out to the Larry H. & Gail Miller Family Foundation for their recent grant to Trails Utah! 🫶

Their generous support helps make events like this Rattlesnake Trail workday (and our upcoming trail workdays) possible, while also covering the administrative costs that go into planning our 2027 trail projects.

Want to learn more about the upcoming projects their grant is helping support? Subscribe to the Trails Talk newsletter here: https://trailsutah.org/newsletter/

08/07/2026

✅ Last month, we looked at a trail planning project that reached the end of a 10+ year planning process: the Tri-Canyon Trail Master Plan.
☑️ This month, we're heading to the Tushar Mountains, where a new planning journey is just beginning.

Located east of Beaver in central Utah, the Tushars are home to Eagle Point Ski Resort and are known for hiking, mountain biking, trail running, skiing, and other outdoor recreation. Whether you've explored the area yourself or know it through events like the Crusher in the Tushar or the Tushar Mountain Run, it's one of Utah's remarkable mountain landscapes.

🗺️ Here's where the Tushar Mountains are located.

The Tushars were recently impacted by the Cottonwood Fire, making this planning effort an opportunity to think carefully about how future trails can support recreation while respecting a landscape that is now recovering.

Follow along throughout August as we take you behind the scenes of this planning effort and share what it takes to lay the groundwork for a trail system that can serve the Tushars for decades to come.

👣 Become a member today and support long-term trail planning at https://trailsutah.org/trail-to-membership/

08/06/2026

This Sunday, we're teaming up with for a Star Gazing Social Run 🌌🏃

We'll head out from Little Mountain Summit around sunset for a 1 hour trail run, then stick around afterward for stargazing and s'mores under one of the darkest skies of the month.

✨ Sunday, August 9
🏃 Meet: 7:30 p.m.
🌅 Run: 8:00–9:00 p.m. (4 miles, 900 ft. vert | bring a headlamp!)
🌌 Stargazing + s'mores: 9:30 p.m.

RSVP through the Events link in our bio. See you then! ✨

07/29/2026

A plan like this only happens when a lot of people stay at the table.

The Tri-Canyon Trails Plan was built through years of work by the Salt Lake Ranger District, Salt Lake County, Landmark Design, stakeholders, partners, local governments, and members of the public. The formal planning process included field data collection, situation assessments, listening sessions, draft plans, and multiple rounds of review before the final plan was presented in 2026.

That kind of collaboration matters in a place like the tri-canyons, where more than 3.2 million annual visits, 170 miles of official trail, and growing recreation pressure all have to be balanced with watershed health, resource protection, and long-term trail sustainability.

Trails Utah is grateful to have had the opportunity to help shape this effort, and we are excited to work alongside the U.S. Forest Service and other partners as the plan begins to turn into trail projects on the ground.

Read the full Tri Canyon Trails Plan here: https://www.tricanyontrails.org/

👣 Become a member today and support the future of better trails in the tri-canyons at https://trailsutah.org/trail-to-membership

The Tri-Canyon Trails Plan is the comprehensive trail plan for Little Cottonwood, Big Cottonwood, and Millcreek Canyons! Salt Lake County and the Forest Service are partnering to identify opportunities to protect watershed and ecosystem health while provi

07/28/2026

10+ years after Tri-Canyon planning began, we’ll be working on these Phase 1 trail projects!

- Twin Lakes–Silver Lake Connection
- Circle All Peak Trail
- Willow Lake Loop
- Albion Meadows to Cecret Lake
- Cecret Lake Loop
- Lower Devil’s Castle Trail
- Pipeline connections in Millcreek Canyon

After years of advocacy, planning, and persistence, this is one of the most exciting parts of the Tri-Canyon Trails Plan: seeing long-term trail planning begin to turn into real projects on the ground.

We are excited to help carry out the mission of the plan and work alongside partners to build better, more sustainable trail connections across the tri-canyons.

👣 Become a member today and support future Tri-Canyon trail projects at https://trailsutah.org/trail-to-membership

See all phased trail projects here: https://www.tricanyontrails.org/

07/23/2026

The Tri-Canyon Trails Plan is more than a map.

The final plan is built around three major pieces of the trail system:

📍 Trailheads — how they function and what they need
🥾 Trail network — maintenance, reroutes, removals, and future trail projects
🌲 Recreation strategies — how use is managed while protecting resources

It also lays out a phased implementation plan, starting with Phase 1 and building toward more complex trail work over time. And it is meant to stay adaptable, with a review every five years as recreation patterns and resource conditions change.

This is not just a planning document. It is a working framework for how trails in the tri-canyons can be improved, maintained, and better connected over time.

👣 Become a member today and support the planning tools that help guide better trails at https://trailsutah.org/trail-to-membership

Learn more about the plan: https://www.tricanyontrails.org/

07/20/2026

Not every trail is meant to stay exactly where people first put it.

One of the more useful parts of the Tri-Canyon Trails Plan is how it treats different kinds of trails differently:

🥾 Concentrated-use trails — high-use trails that need to be built to handle heavy visitation
🔗 Connector trails — trails that link destinations and reduce the need for social trails
🌱 User-created trails — trails not originally built or maintained by the Forest Service

Some user-created trails may be formalized where a sustainable reroute exists. Others may need to be closed and naturalized if they are causing resource damage or duplicating better options.

That kind of thinking is a big part of sustainable trail planning — and it lines up closely with the kind of trail work Trails Utah has long advocated for.

👣 Become a member today and support the planning work that helps make trail systems more sustainable at https://trailsutah.org/trail-to-membership

Read the full Tri-Canyon Trails Plan here 👉https://www.tricanyontrails.org/uploads/1/4/3/3/143333128/tricanyon_final_plan_01-26-2026.pdf

07/18/2026

This final Tri-Canyon Trail Plan did not appear overnight.

The Tri-Canyon Trails Plan grew out of a much longer conversation about the future of the Central Wasatch, including the Mountain Accord process. But its formal planning phase still took years. The Salt Lake Ranger District began collecting field data in 2020 through trail inventories, condition assessments, and a new trail counter program to better understand trail conditions and recreation patterns.

From there, the process kept building:

- 2022: situation assessments and engagement with local governments, stakeholders, partners, and the public
- 2023: listening sessions to better understand values and concerns
-2024: a preliminary draft plan
- 2025: a draft plan with phased trail projects, recreation strategies, and reviewed alignments
- 2026: the final plan

That timeline is a good reminder that long-term trail planning is exactly that: long-term. It takes data collection, public input, review, revision, and years of follow-through before a final plan is ready to guide work on the ground.

👣 Become a member today and support the long-term work it takes to move trail planning forward at https://trailsutah.org/trail-to-membership