Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park
State parks
A field of vivid coral-pink sand dunes about 22 miles west of Kanab, Utah, popular for OHV riding, hiking, sandboarding, and camping.
The park
Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park protects a striking expanse of coral-colored dunes in southern Utah, roughly 22 miles west of Kanab on Sand Dunes Road. Utah established it in 1963; it covers about 3,730 acres and sits near 6,000 feet, which is most of a mile above St. George.
Why the sand is pink
The color is inherited. The dunes are made of grains eroded from the surrounding Navajo sandstone, and the same iron oxide that gives the cliffs their red tint gives the loose sand its coral-pink cast.
The dunes themselves exist because of a gap. Wind funnels through the notch between the Moquith and Moccasin Mountains, accelerates as it squeezes through — the Venturi effect, the same principle as a thumb over a hose — and then drops its sand load the moment the passage opens out and the wind slows. Everything here is the debris of that one bottleneck.
Still moving
This is not a fossil landscape. Dunes here rise as much as fifty feet and travel up to roughly fifty feet a year, so the field genuinely rearranges itself within a human lifetime. A photograph taken from a fixed point a decade apart shows different country.
A species found nowhere else
The dunes are the entire world range of the Coral Pink Sand Dunes tiger beetle, a small predatory insect that lives in the moist sand of the interdune hollows and occurs on no other dune field anywhere. Its habitat is narrow in a literal sense: it needs the transition band between the fast-moving dunes and the more stable ones, where vegetation can establish and larval burrows survive.
A conservation area of a few hundred acres is closed to vehicles on its account, and federal wildlife authorities have considered it for threatened status. That is the reason not all of the sand is open to riding, and it is worth knowing before arriving with a machine.
What people do here
Off-highway vehicle riding on the designated dune areas is the main draw, alongside hiking, sandboarding and photography. A campground offers both no-hookup and water-and-electric sites.
The park is also a certified International Dark Sky Park. Remoteness, elevation and an unobstructed horizon in every direction make it one of the better places in the region to be after dark — see dark sky sites near St. George.
Timing
The elevation here is higher than St. George, so it runs cooler in summer and genuinely cold in winter. Sand temperatures in midsummer afternoon sun are a real consideration for bare feet and for dogs. Early and late light is what makes the color photograph properly; at midday the dunes read almost white.
More on this: Coral Pink Sand Dunes.
Frequently asked questions
Why is the sand pink?
It is second-hand Navajo sandstone. The cliffs around the park are stained red by iron oxide, and the grains that erode off them carry the same tint into the dune field. The dunes are, in effect, the surrounding rock taken apart and piled up.
Where does all the sand come from?
From a gap in the mountains. Wind squeezing through the notch between the Moquith and Moccasin ranges speeds up, carries sand through, then slows the instant the passage widens and drops what it was holding. The entire field is the by-product of that one bottleneck.
Do the dunes actually move?
Yes, and quickly enough to notice. They stand up to about fifty feet high and migrate up to roughly fifty feet in a year, so the shape of the field changes across a decade rather than across geological time. It is an active landscape, not a preserved one.
Is it good for stargazing?
Very. It is a certified International Dark Sky Park, and it has the three things that matter at once — distance from any city, elevation near 6,000 feet, and a horizon unobstructed in every direction. The dunes also photograph unusually well under a night sky.
Is the whole dune field open to riding?
No, and this is the thing to check before loading a machine. A conservation area of several hundred acres is closed to vehicles to protect a beetle that lives here and nowhere else on earth. The rideable ground is the designated dune area; the rest is off-limits and signed.
Can I ride OHVs on the dunes?
Yes, on the designated areas, and it is the main reason most people come. Sand riding is its own discipline — momentum matters more than power, and a machine that stops is a machine you dig out.
Can I camp at the dunes?
Yes. The older campground has standard no-hookup sites and the newer one has sites with water and electric hookups, and group sites are available. Reservations run through the Utah State Parks system, and it is worth booking ahead for spring and fall weekends.
Address
12500 Sand Dune RdKanab, UT 84741
Contact
- Website: https://stateparks.utah.gov/parks/coral-pink/
- Work Phone: 435-648-2800