Trail Overview
Turtle 1 is a short, technical rock crawling trail in the Sand Mountain Recreation Area designed for intermediate to advanced offroaders. Spanning 0.3 miles, the route climbs 268 feet from a sandy wash onto grippy slickrock ledges. Drivers traditionally run this trail from the bottom up, navigating an average gradient of 12 degrees that reaches up to 30 degrees on key obstacles.
Rated 7 out of 10, the trail presents three or four challenging sandstone obstacles though easier bypasses exist. The high-traction surface features a few off-camber sections but lacks dangerous cliffs. This trail offers a quick shortcut from the Ledges back up to Top of the World and pairs well with Turtle 2 for a loop.
Difficulty
Most of the obstacles are fairly easy, while 3 or 4 are a bit harder and require good line selection. There are some bypasses on T1 if you would like an easier route, but that would take some of the fun out of it. There's great traction on most of the obstacles with a few off-camber sections, but no large cliffs.
History
Turtle 1 and Turtle 2 are relatively new additions to the Sand Mountain trail system. As newer routes, they lack official trail markers at the trailheads, though Turtle 2 features white painted arrows on the rock surface to aid in navigation.
Access Description
Accessing this trail requires entering the Sand Mountain Recreation Area, managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), often accessed via Sand Hollow State Park. A day-use fee or state park pass is required for staging inside the park. All off-highway vehicles (OHVs) must display a valid Utah OHV registration or non-resident permit, and must be equipped with a whip flag.
