Santa Fe Trail Dispersed Site

Just up the hill and through a neighborhood. Lots of switch backs and narrow roads. Thank God I saw the review about the another guy wanting to turn around many time trees but sticking with it, because I legit hit a section in my Rav 4 that I thought I wasn’t going to make it through. To be fair I was here at dusk and I also had a cargo hitch on, which was getting tossed around on the rocks. The RAV4 made it up but highly freaked out my dogs who are fairly tolerant of this kind of stuff.

Someone was at the campsite when I got here, and I decided to pull in a private driveway across from it because there was no way I was driving back down the narrow stretch at night. (Edit: I went back down that narrow stretch later that night - it was easier on the way down)

There’s cell service with Verizon so at least I could call someone to talk me down after the not so fun adrenaline rush.

The site was so beautiful and the views took my breath away but the way up gave me so much anxiety that I wanted to turn around multiple times. Granted I drove up in the middle of the night so it looked like I was driving on the side of a cliff, which there is on some parts of the trail but it looks way worse in the dark so if you're going definitely make sure it's during the day when there's light.

Had gorgeous views of the mountains but the trail requires a 4WD vehicle with a lot of clearance in order to make it up.

Found this site on my drive from Nashville to Moab for an overnight stop. Arrived shortly after sunset and was able to find the trail easily and navigate up to the site. This road definitely needs raised 4 x 4 vehicle as the switchbacks and rocks would be too much for a lower vehicle. OnX rate this trail as Green and I would agree although it’s on the higher end of Green. I arrived on a Saturday and sites filled up quickly. Vehicles arrived 10 minutes after I found this spot and turned around.