Entry Points:
About Grand County
At the heart of Southern Utah's "Red Rock" country, Grand County is a wilderness of deserts, mountains, cliffs and gullies, and gorges hundreds of feet deep. The unique terrain attracts rock climbing, hiking, river rafting, mountain biking and four-wheeling enthusiasts to its recreational Mecca.
The Colorado River lies at the core of Grand County's intrigue. This great river of the American southwest begins in the Colorado Rockies, and carves mighty canyons such as the Grand Canyon. It passes through Grand County in a gorge a thousand feet deep, lined with cliffs of red sandstone. The unique effects of erosion in the sandstone produced the thousands of arches and other formations of Arches National Park, which lies at the center of the county. The Green River, another of the largest rivers in Utah, forms the western boundary of the county. The two rivers converge just to the south, in Canyonlands National Park. A vast plateau stretches between the two rivers, where a rugged network of dirt roads is frequented by four-wheelers and chasms and pinnacles of stone can be explored.
Contrasting the rocks and sagebrush of the deserts, the La Sal Mountains rise to over 12,000 feet on the southern boundary of the county, close to Moab. Covered in alpine forests and meadows, they make an ideal getaway on those hot summer days.
Covering 3,682 square miles (about twice the size of Delaware), Grand County is inhabited by 8,485 people (with half of them living in Moab). Interstate 70 crosses the county from east to west at the feet of the yellow/purple Book Cliffs. U.S. U.S. Highway 191 connects from the freeway southward to Moab and beyond. Utah Highway 313 leads to Canyonlands, and Utah Highways 128 and 279 follow the Colorado River through its dramatic gorge.