6 hours Ago
The number of hikers and bikers along the Wasatch Front is growing. Yet over the next two summers, they’ll find fewer quick options for escaping the crowds. Starting Thursday, a road improvement project will close upper Mill Creek Canyon Road to all travelers.
The road, which is popular with cyclists, and its handful of trailheads are scheduled to remain closed through at least fall 2026 with one exception: Nonmotorized access will be allowed from December 15 to March 15, when construction is paused. Officials from the United States Forest Service, Salt Lake County and the city of Millcreek acknowledge the extended road closure may aggravate those who have come to enjoy escaping to places like Dog Lake and Mount Aire. The project will also temporarily put more pressure on trails lower in the canyon, potentially making them even more crowded.
Still, the officials say, that near-term pain will lead to long-term gains. “While it’s going to be frustrating to not be able to use this beautiful space for the next couple of years,” Millcreek Mayor Jeff Silvestrini said, “it’ll be so much better when we get done.” The main focus of the roughly $30 million project is the improvement of the 4.
6-mile stretch of Mill Creek Canyon Road above the winter gate. That includes shoring up the road to prevent it from eroding into Mill Creek. It also includes widening the road in some places and adding uphill bike lanes where possible.
Silvestrini said care will be taken to prevent the road from becoming an autobahn . “We’re doing the bare minimum to widen the roadway in critical spots,” he said. “But basically we’re going to preserve the character of that roadway, because people love that as well.
” (Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Trees explode with fall color along the confluence of Red Pine Road Trail and Little Water Trail at the top of Millcreek Canyon on Thursday, Oct. 7, 2021. Perhaps most notably for hikers, parking lots will be expanded and trailheads revamped.
Drivers parking on both sides of the road and backing into traffic to pull into and out of spots had become a safety issue, Silvestrini said. He said last summer a firefighter with the Unified Fire Authority was hit by a car when responding to a call because of the congestion. In addition, by freeing up space in the Upper Big Water trailhead lot, he said hikers may no longer have to tack another mile each way onto their hikes to Dog Lake or Murdoch Peak .
That is roughly the distance between the Upper Big Water lot at the end of the canyon and the next legal parking area at the Lower Big Water trailhead. The safety issues qualified the project for funding from the Federal Highway Administration’s Federal Lands Access Program. In 2021, FLAP granted the project $19.
6 million. Salt Lake County added another $9 million, according to regional planning and transportation director Helen Peters. “Having cars back out into a line of traffic is not safe,” Peters said.
“So there were public safety issues.” (Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Crews prepare for major renovations to upper Mill Creek Canyon Road on Tuesday, April 29, 2025. Starting Thursday, the road beyond the winter gate is slated to be closed for nearly two years in Phase 1 of a project to shore up the road, create a bike lane and add new parking lots.
Peters said the county has applied for and is awaiting approval of a second FLAP grant to address similar issues along the lower part of Mill Creek Canyon Road. Annual visitation to Mill Creek Canyon from 2015-22 has fluctuated between 434,000 and 750,000, according to studies cited in the environmental impact statement prepared for the project by the Department of Transportation. How many of those users venture into the upper canyon — which is only open to motorized traffic between July 1 and Oct.
31 each year — is unknown. However, a 2012 feasibility study estimated summer visitation in the upper canyon to be 30-40% of total canyon visits. For the more intrepid visitors to the upper canyon, Adam Shaw, the district ranger for the Salt Lake Ranger District of the Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest, offered some good news.
He noted that while the road will be closed, most of the trails in that area will remain open. The hitch is that hikers and bikers will have to access them either from the Pipeline or Desolation trails in lower Mill Creek Canyon or from another area, such as Big Cottonwood Canyon or, in the case of the Great Western Trail, from Summit County. The Little Water Trail connecting the upper parking lot and the Dog Lake Trail to the Lower Big Water parking lot is one of the trails that will be closed during construction.
Old Red Pine Road will also be closed. (Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) The Pipe Line trail in Mill Creek Canyon is slated to get a new bridge over the small creek at Elbow Fork as major renovations to upper Mill Creek Canyon Road will soon begin, pictured Tuesday, April 29, 2025. Starting Thursday, the road beyond the winter gate is slated to be closed for nearly two years in Phase 1 of a project to shore up the road, create a bike lane and add new parking lots.
Trail maintenance, Shaw said, will not be interrupted. “It should be regular business,” he said, “as far as trails go and as far as trail maintenance goes.” Shaw estimated the project would be completed in December 2026.
Project updates will be posted on the Salt Lake County Office of Regional Development website . From there, those interested can also subscribe to email updates..
