While the Utah side of Dinosaur National Monument gets all the hype for its world-famous fossil wall, the far northern district offers something entirely different: solitude, wild river country, and sheer canyon walls carved out over a billion years of earth history.
A few days before our road trip, Justin stumbled across a photo of a dramatic canyon entrance where the Green River slices right through towering red cliffs. We realized it was located in the park’s remote northern district at the Gates of Lodore. Even though driving there from our basecamp in Vernal meant a massive 4.5 – 5-hour drive, we couldn’t resist adding it to our itinerary.
Debunking the Internet Myths: The Drive to Maybell & Lodore
When planning a trip to remote national park boundaries, online research can sometimes do more harm than good. The night before our drive, a quick search surfaced a warning: getting to the Gates of Lodore requires navigating an unpaved mountain road with a 17% grade.
An alternative route from the west was via a dirt road that can be muddy after rain – and I couldn’t tell if it was high clearance vehicles or passenger ones were ok? Since it had rained the night before, we almost canceled the drive entirely, and I’ll admit I was annoyed — we’d already shifted our itinerary to include this, and now three different forum posts had us convinced we’d get stuck in the mud or be scared of the grade.
Further digging revealed that Colorado Highway 318 toward the park entrance was paved back in 2002 and holds a 14% grade over one section— and we weren’t sure we wanted to do that, so we decided to play it safe by taking the slightly longer, scenic paved flat route through Maybell, Colorado:
- Vernal to Maybell, CO: A 90-minute stretch through wide-open high-desert range country, and one we’d end up driving three separate times on this trip — once on the way in from Colorado, once for today’s detour, and once more heading home.
- Maybell to Gates of Lodore Entrance: About an hour heading northwest along CO-318, on a flat paved road.
The “Steep Grade” Reality: After talking with a couple on our hike, we decided to tackle the incline route back toward Vernal that internet forums warned about. It was completely fine—fully paved, smooth, short, and easily managed by standard passenger vehicles in dry weather. I kept thinking – when is the 14% grade? But next thing we knew we were on the top and it almost felt like a letdown at that point. By then I wanted a steep adventure, and I wanted video of it. (I am not saying all people in all vechiles should drive this section, I have no idea about RVs, trailers, or trucks but there are signs along the way with a warning of the 14% grade and a detour through Wyoming).
Hiking to the Gates of Lodore Canyon Overlook
Arriving at the Gates of Lodore feels like stepping onto another planet. Unlike the busy fossil quarry on the Utah side, this remote campground and river launch site is peaceful, quiet, and untamed. Most people who make the trip up here are preparing for multi-day river rafting expeditions through the wilderness canyons of the Green River.
We borrowed a self-guided trail brochure at the trailhead and set out on the short nature trail toward the canyon entrance viewpoint. The trail starts with an incline that levels out into a relatively flat, well-maintained dirt path winding past desert shrubs and rock outcrops.
The rock formations flanking the Gates of Lodore are among the oldest exposed rocks in the entire National Park System — dating back 585 million to nearly 1 billion years old, part of what’s called the Uinta Mountain Group. Strangely, the canyon itself is nowhere near that old — geologists think the Green River only started cutting through this rock somewhere in the last 3 to 5 million years, which means you’re looking at a young river carving through an almost incomprehensibly old mountain. I mean, let that number sit with you — the rock could be a billion years old. When else will you see something that old?
The trail terminates on a high rock shelf overlooking the calm waters of the Green River right before it disappears between two massive, 1,000-foot vertical sandstone walls. We didn’t talk much up there, we sat at the edge for 15 minutes, completely alone, soaking in the silence and beauty.
Side Trips & Road Discoveries
Since we made a day out of the northern drive, we explored a few local detours along the way. These were the stops near Gates of Lodore off CO-318 or UT-1364.
Vermillion Falls: Located off an unpaved side road, reaching the falls required a bit of bumpy dirt driving. High clearance is definitely recommended. When we pulled up, two men were just climbing back into their truck to leave. We had plenty of room to walk around them to get to the falls, but their manuvering ended up in a spot that blocked our path and they then got stuck in the mud. I tried motioning around them, basically like, just stop trying to move so we can walk around you but I think they read it as us asking if they needed help. Either way, we ended up waiting about 8 minutes for them to move — which is funny in hindsight, since actually viewing the waterfall itself took all of 3. We could have easily skipped this stop, but it only took 15 minutes or so.
Browns Park National Wildlife Refuge: We pulled off at the refuge parking lot to enjoy a quiet car picnic lunch (our Smith’s grocery wrap & salad). No restroom at this spot.
Swinging Bridge: When I first saw this on the map, I thought it was a pedestrian bridge, we’d walked over a few other swinging bridges, hey they are fun. But it turns out this is a car bridge — to get to that dirt road that could be a shortcut (that I didn’t know if was high clearance or not). Only one car can be on this very narrow bridge at a time. We drove over it slowly, and since we weren’t going that way, we turned around and drove over it again. Since I happened to be driving at this time, there are no still photos, but we have it on the video below about _____.
John Jarvie Historic Ranch: This valley was once a notorious hideout for Wild West outlaws, including Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Matt Warner, Isam Dart and Josie Bassett Morris, who used the remote state-line borders to evade law enforcement. The ranch was closed (which I already knew), but it was right there, so we figured we’d at least drive up to it and just see where it was in this remote region.
Is the Northern Drive Worth It?
If you enjoy long, scenic drives, wide-open mountain landscapes, and escaping National Park crowds, the Gates of Lodore loop is worth the effort. And it’s worth noting the loop barely costs you anything extra — an out-and-back from the east on the graded road alone would have been about 4.5 hours, so turning it into the full loop only added a little time for a very different drive back.
The drive reveals a wilder, more ancient side of Dinosaur National Monument that the vast majority of park visitors completely miss. The Gates themselves are gorgeous enough that if rafting was more my thing, this would be at the top of my bucket list — floating right through those thousand-foot walls has to be incredible. Rapids aren’t really my speed, though; I’m more of a lazy-float person. Still, it’s hard not to stand at that overlook and wonder what it looks like from the water instead of above it.
Check out our video below:
Other posts from this trip:
- 4-Day Dinosaur National Monument Road Trip Itinerary
- Exploring the Utah Side of Dinosaur National Monument: Fossils, Rock Art, and Canyon Hikes
- 2 Hours Driving the Colorado Side of Dinosaur National Monument: Harpers Corner Scenic Drive & River Canyons
- Beyond the Monument: Rock Art, Trackways, and Small-Town Treasures Around Vernal, UT
