Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park
Sand Dunes · Kanab, Utah
Three thousand seven hundred and thirty acres of pink sand at six thousand feet in Kane County, between Mount Carmel Junction and Kanab. The colour is hematite — iron oxide coating quartz grains eroded out of Navajo Sandstone, carried here by wind funnelling through the notch between the Moquith and Moccasin Mountains and dropped as the gap opens out. The dunes are ten to fifteen thousand years old. They are also the entire world range of the Coral Pink Sand Dunes tiger beetle, which lives here and nowhere else, in a park that also permits off-road vehicles.
Coral Pink Sand Dunes Road, Kanab, Utah, United States
Open year round. A Utah State Parks day-use fee is charged per vehicle, typically about $10-$20, with the state parks annual pass accepted; camping with showers is booked through Utah State Parks. ⚠ THIS IS A SHARED-USE PARK: off-road vehicles ride the open dunes, while a 265-acre conservation area protects the Coral Pink Sand Dunes tiger beetle — a species found nowhere else in the world — and Welsh's milkweed, a federally threatened plant. KNOW WHICH ZONE YOU ARE IN, and stay alert on foot in the open dune field. Sandboards are rented on site. ⚠ THERE IS NO SHADE ANYWHERE ON THE DUNES and walking on soft sand is far more tiring than the distances suggest — carry more water than you think. At about 6,000 feet the park is noticeably cooler than the low desert and is comfortable well into spring and autumn, though nights cool sharply.
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