Temple Mountain Loop OHV Trail - Emery CO Utah

The Temple Mountain OHV trails are located in Emery County, Utah south of the San Rafael Reed Wilderness Area, with close proximity to Goblin Valley State Park, Green River and Hanksville. There is an area to stage with a restroom and fire rings that is suitable for camping.

This trail is 31 miles of rocky trails, sandy washes and beautiful mountain views. We spent four hours at an average speed of 6 mph riding. You can easily make this a full day trip by taking some of the side roads to explore this remote area.

There are no services on the trail so stock up in Green River or Hanksville.

Riding is scenic, with sandy trails, beautiful vistas and impressive views of Temple Mountain.

Directions From the North
Directions from the South
Facilities: Plenty of amenities as you drive through St. George and Santa Clara.
You may encounter gates. Leave them as you find them.
OHVs: All sizes. No width limits. ATVs, MCs, UTVs, 4x4s on most trails.
Signing: Most trails have adequate signage
KML File for Google Maps
GPX File for your Garmin GPS or other Apps

We highly recommend you get GAIA GPS for your smartphone or tablet mobile device. GAIA GPS will allow you to download this trail complete with the photos you see here so you can be sure where you are at all times. Simply install the GAIA GPS app and save this trail from here: DOWNLOAD THIS TRAIL

Here is an embedded live link to GAIA GPS to allow you to explore the trail. Each of the blue markers indicates that a photo was taken at that location. To view the track and photos click here: GAIA GPS – Temple Mountain Loop

Would you like to see the trail in an animated 3D flyover map? If it appears to pause that is likely a place we stopped for a while. It will continue, just wait a few moments. Link to 3D flyover.

Here is the 360 view at the trailhead. Feel free to tour around a bit inside Google Street Views. We have recorded the trail in 360, and it is now part of Google Street Views so you can take a virtual tour of the trail to see if it is for you. We’ve made it a bit easier to navigate, scroll down and you will see more 360 embedded tours where we encountered intersections, trail markers or interesting places along the trail.

On any image, you can click the ‘X’ in the upper right corner and the view will change to an overview map showing the Google Street View blue lines. You can click anywhere on that blue line and drop down to the 360 ground-level views at that point.

You can move the image 360 degrees, click the arrow to move further down the trail and zoom in and out to take a closer look. Clicking the box in the upper right-hand corner will enlarge to full screen for a better view.

There is an open area for staging to park and unload your machine.

There is a vault toilet, fire rings and primitive camping available at the trailhead.

Head northeast on the trail through North Temple Wash.

There are sandy trails to enjoy alongside incredible views as you continue.

Stay left at the fork. Here we went right for a little exploring, but returned back the same way and proceeded on the trail headed west.

Head northwest and you will enjoy a ride around Temple Mountain with many noteworthy areas to explore on foot just off the trail.

Temple Mountain signage where you can learn about the history of the area. After this, you can either continue on exploring as we did or head back to the trailhead by going southeast on Temple Mountain Road.

If you’re continuing to explore, stay on Behind the Reef Trail. Note there are several restricted Wilderness Study Areas so please respect the posted areas.

Pay attention to signage and stay on the designated trails.

You can stay on Route 1016 for wide open spaces and views for miles. We did an exploration loop on 850 (pictured below), which was cool, but we did have to double back on some of the previously traveled areas.

As you head back toward the trailhead, be sure to keep an eye out some incredible pictographs. Please do not touch these, but feel free to photograph and enjoy.

Here is a photo gallery of all of the images we took along the way. Not necessarily in any order or sequence. Many are at trail intersections. You can see the photos and exactly where along the trail where taken: Click here for Photo Locations.