Dog Friendly Moab, Utah
Moab Utah offers many dog friendly options if you are traveling with your dogs. Here are some tips and advice to make the most of your visit!
Quick Tips:
- Get out early! It gets HOT, fast.
- Be prepared to have little/no cell service outside of town – download trail maps ahead of time!
- Watch out for cactus (especially if you aren’t familiar with them on trails – we sure aren’t!)
Arches National Park With Dogs
Arches National Park Access
In typical National Park fashion, Arches is not very dog friendly. However, your pet can tag along on the scenic drive through the park, which in our opinion, is an amazing drive! Dogs can also hop out at various parking spots and overlook areas for a quick break.
Don’t forget to check out the website ahead of time and ensure you have a timed entry ticket. You can not enter without one.
If you forget to get a pass, “day of” passes open the evening before at 6pm. This is what we did and there were plenty available.
Arches Scenic Drive
There are several audio tours you can download that talk you through each area of the drive. We downloaded ours from Tripadvisor for $10. You do need to download guides OUTSIDE of the park as there is little to no WiFi. Also, we’d recommend purchasing and downloading your guide few hours before you head to the park as with ours the sent a code that took a bit to get the download.
Quick Hikes In Arches
There are quite a few hikes that are only 0.5 – 1 miles round trip, we actually took turns with one hiking and one waiting in the AC in the car with the pups! Whatever you do, never, ever, leave your dog in the car even for a ‘quick’ 5-10 min. Walk. Moab gets deadly hot within minutes.
There are many long popular hikes inside the park (like Delicate Arch) so if you have your heart set on doing these you will need a doggy daycare or a trip to Moab without them.
Moab Weather
It gets hot out, FAST. Even lower 80s feel 10 degrees+ hotter in Moab than it does for us at home in Iowa. Our pups don’t handle heat well so we do all of our hiking really early and aim to be done hiking around 9:30am – 10am.
Bonus: you have most trails to yourself starting hikes early.
Shaded Moab Hikes
While we recommend avoiding mid-day activities with your dog, there are a handful of trails that provide a bit more shade.
Grandstaff Trail
This is a 5.7 mile out and back trail follows a creek bed in Grandstaff Canyon ending with a view of Morning Glory Arch. This hike is close to the main road and entrance to Arches.
The canyon provides some decent shade outside of the mid-day hours. There are a few small creek crossings but there was usually enough rocks or spots to get through easily. It can be easy to lose the path but from what we experienced it all ends up in the same spot.
Hunter Canyon
A 3.2 mile out and back trail. This trail is pretty remote and has lots of wildflowers and pretty views through the canyon.
Be sure to either download the Google map to get there or have navigation on that will continue once you loss service because most of the drive here we lost all cell service. One important thing to note is the drive here is pretty windy and bumpy. We passed a lot of OTV tours along the way.
The canyon provides some decent shade outside of the mid-day hours and it can be easy to lose the path but you are following a creek so we were always able to get back to the path. That being said, we downloaded the All Trails app prior to going just to be safe.
Hiking “Dog Friendly” Corona Arch
This is a 2.5 mile out and back trail with no shade. If you go early you can pretty much have the arch to yourself.
We put “dog friendly” in quotes because there is a bit of a challenging climb involved. There is a steep chain section and a 10 foot ladder climb.
We did see several other dogs out and about that seemed to know what they were doing and find ways around these areas. In our opinion, these dogs were pretty frequent hikers and good with navigating tricky terrain. We used our K9 Sport Sack backpacks for the corgis.
Dog Friendly Downtown Moab
The Food Truck Park is our go to spot! Every day there are around 10 food trucks to choose from with plenty of outdoor seating.
We also found lunch at a Quesadilla food truck which had a bunch of outdoor seating and is on the same block as the large Moab Food Truck Park.
We stopped at Moab Coffee Roster’s patio for some ice coffee and found a dog friendly gift shop at Simply Redrock to pick up some treats!
There are plenty of small shops on the main street that allow dogs inside! Most have a sign on the door otherwise, peek in and ask.
There are a handful of additional restaurants and coffee shops that are dog friendly as well but because it was so hot during the day, we didn’t stick around downtown too much.
Hot Pavement Warning! It can get very hot downtown so we always try to walk the dogs on the shady side of the street. 🙂
Other Dog Friendly Spots Close to Moab
Dead Horse State Park
45 minutes from Moab and dog friendly! Separate entry fee (doesn’t accept national park pass if you have one). Dogs are allowed on all trails but just be aware of the cliff edges.
The main attraction is to watch the sunset here. We brought a picnic lunch and some beers and hung out for the evening.
Canyonlands National Park
Around 30-45 minutes from Moab, you can check another National Park off the list. Same as Arches though, not very dog friendly. Dogs are not allowed on trails and the scenic drive is not very pretty especially compared to Arches. We stopped a couple overlooks and called it good.
Poison Spider Trail
While this trail is dog friendly, it does not come highly recommended on our list for dogs. This trail definitely required our K9 Sport Sacks as there was a section that required climbing iron hand & foot rails. Additionally, the trail can be very narrow with cactus everywhere. If you dog is not used to this type of environment, you’d want to keep them on a tight leash. This trail was somewhat marked but is very easy to get lost on. There is no shade so we were concerned with the corgis as the morning was getting hotter and didn’t finish the trail. Tip: there was no cell service for us (Verizon) here so be sure to download the trail map while you are in town.
In Conclusion
Moab offers many fantastic views and trails and is a great unique location to experience. If you can plan to hike early or late you can make your dog’s experience in Moab, Utah so much better. As always, bring plenty of water where ever you go for yourself and your pup and be mindful of their feet as the pavement and rocks can get hot.
For more dog friendly travel options, make sure to check out our posts here!
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