While we were staying in Salt Lake City for a month, we planned a few day trips – including one to Arches National Park near Moab, UT, about 3.5 hours from SLC. Unfortunately, when we arrived at the Arches entrance, a park ranger was directing everyone to turn around and leave because the park was closed for the afternoon since they were out of parking. Our options were to come back in three hours and see if they’d reopened or to find something else to do in the area, so we pulled over, did some quick Googling, and decided to head to Canyonlands National Park since it has an entrance near Arches.

We ended up hiking the Syncline Loop Trail (or Syncline Trail) at Canyonlands and we had a really great time, so we will definitely go back to the area in the next year or two – both to actually make it to Arches, and to try another hike at Canyonlands.

Getting to Canyonlands National Park

Canyonlands actually has two main entrances – one to Island in the Sky and the other to The Needles. The Island in the Sky entrance is about half an hour from the Arches National Park entrance, so that’s where we headed. We didn’t realize this until we arrived, but the two entrances never meet up inside the park. The only way to get from Island in the Sky to The Needles or vice versa is to drive two hours around the park. This is really important to know when planning the hike or hikes to do on a trip to Canyonlands – from our brief Googling after we tried to get into Arches, we thought a hike we saw on AllTrails sounded fun but then we had to change our plans when we realized it was at The Needles.

It usually costs $30 per vehicle to get into the park, but you then have access to the park for a week. We actually had some good luck to balance out not getting into Arches – we didn’t have to pay to get into Canyonlands because the computer systems were down. The park ranger handed us a map and told us the only requirement was to have a great day at Island in the Sky.

As an alternative to the typical entrance fee, there are a few annual pass options. One is the Southeast Utah Parks pass – it includes a year of access to Arches, Canyonlands, and a few national monuments (Hovenweep and Natural Bridges) for $55. If you’re in the area and plan to go to both Arches and Canyonlands, then the annual pass would be worth it since Arches and Canyonlands separately have a $30 fee each.

Syncline Loop Trail at Canyonlands National Park

Park: Canyonlands National Park
Hike: Syncline Trail
Length: 8.3-mile loop
Time: 4 hours 45 minutes (our pace); Map said 5-7 hours
Difficulty: Challenging

Overview of Syncline Trail

When we arrived at the entrance of Canyonlands, the park ranger gave us a map that included really detailed information on each of the trails at Island of the Sky. This was especially helpful since Canyonlands was a last-minute decision for us. Dom (naturally) decided we should do the trail with the warnings about how 1) challenging it was and 2) most park rescues occur on the trail. So, we drove the 11 miles from the visitor center to the Syncline Trail.

The Syncline Trail is an 8.3-mile loop around Upheaval Dome. If the map hadn’t warned us about how challenging the hike was, then the signs would have – there were signs for the first mile or so that said again that the trail was “very strenuous”. There was a lot of carefully climbing down into the canyon over the first half of the loop and then a lot of scrambling up during the second half, so the trail wasn’t a walk in the park, but it also wasn’t as bad as all of the signs made it sound. It’s definitely not a hike that should be taken super lightly, but if you’re used to basic scrambles or are in okay shape, then you should be fine. I would put it in the “challenging” category rather than “strenuous”.

The signs that warned about the trail’s difficulty also said that it was a difficult trail to follow. We did get off the trail twice – once pretty early on and again about 2/3 of the way through – but it wasn’t too difficult to backtrack a bit and get back in the route. It’s really important to keep an eye out for cairns (the stacks of rocks that mark the trail) because at points, they were the only way we knew where to go.

We were able to read a few reviews of the Syncline Trail before we started the hike and we were really glad we did because a lot of people recommend to do the loop clockwise. This allows for part of the last few miles to be shaded by a canyon wall, so it was really nice to have a break from the sun toward the end of the hike.

One of the best parts of the hike for us was that we did over half of it with another couple (Joe and Krystin) that started the hike around the same time we did. We had a really great time chatting with them about jobs, families, life, and traveling (…including Disney trips). It made the hike a lot more fun and enjoyable than we ever would have expected.

Overall, we thoroughly enjoyed hiking the Syncline Trail. I would recommend it to anyone who is looking for a more challenging hike in the Moab / Arches National Park area, especially if you’re interested in a longer hike that’s a good introduction to scrambles.

Views at Canyonlands and on the Syncline Trail

When we were driving the 11 miles from the visitor center to the trailhead, I was really impressed with how beautiful Canyonlands was since it’s not a park I’d ever heard of. In hindsight, I wish we had pulled off to get some pictures while we were driving because it really was incredible.

The views on the Syncline Trail itself weren’t as good as some of the Zion hikes we did or even as picturesque as the drive to the trailhead, but it was still really scenic. If you hike the trail clockwise, it’s important to stop and turn around on the second half of the trail – those were some of the coolest views but since we were hiking up and away from the canyon, we had to consciously think about looking behind us.

In the last few miles (again, going clockwise) there were some massive canyon walls surrounding us. The pictures don’t do it justice, but it was really awesome and made me feel really small.

Packing list for the Syncline Trail

The route was pretty brutally exposed to the sun for the majority of the hike, which made it a lot more challenging than it would have been on a cloudy and cooler day. These are pretty generic tips but we unfortunately did 3 out of the 4 of these slightly wrong, so making a note of them:

• Bring and apply sunscreen frequently – Don’t miss the back of your legs, arms, neck, etc. About 1/3 of the loop was walking away from the sun and I realized too late that I missed the back of my legs
• Wear a hat – helps keep the sun off your face a bit
• Bring more water / Gatorade / etc. than you think you need – This is one of those classic hiking rules that I usually don’t give too much thought, but we really did wish we had brought significantly more to drink with us on this hike. We had a Yeti, Hydroflask, Croksicle, and a large Gatorade bottle, but next time we would probably add on a Camelbak for each of us.
  • Use insulated water bottles like Yeti’s and Hydroflasks on the hike so drinks stay cool
  • Have a cooler with even more drinks and snacks in the car for when you finish the hike. It took a while for us to get to a good gas station to get more to drink and eat once we left Canyonlands (we stopped in Green River, UT about an hour away – they have a Subway for sandwiches and chips, and an Arby’s across the street for milkshakes)
• Pack a variety of snacks – We had a lot of sweet snacks (Clif bars, PB&J sandwiches, nutrigrain bars) but since I was probably a little dehydrated, all that sounded good to me was something salty, which we unfortunately hadn’t brought. Next time I will pack chips / nuts / pretzels / peanut butter Ritz crackers / etc.

Getting to the Syncline Trail Trailhead

Like I mentioned, it’s about 11 miles from the Island in the Sky visitor center to the Syncline Trail trailhead. It’s a straightforward drive if you’re looking at the map and signs though – 6 miles past the visitor center, there’s a fork; turn right and go another five miles.

Parking at the Syncline Trail Trailhead

There was plenty of parking near the Upheaval Dome – when we got there, all of the parking spots were full but there was plenty of space to park off the side of the road. It is kind of a busy area since there are picnic tables and outhouses there, as well as the trailhead to the more popular Overlook Trail.

Part of why I think it wasn’t too bad of a hike for us was because the week before, we had done part of the Lady Mountain Trail at Zion, which had significantly more intense scrambles than Syncline. Check out my post on Zion National Park if you’re interested in hearing about our experience there!