Parking
Start at the designated Dead Horse Point overlook parking lot; the paved path to the viewpoint begins there.
Overview
About Overlook Trail
Why go
- Paved access to the park’s signature Colorado River overlook
- Shade shelter at the viewpoint
Heads up
- The main path is very short; the longer rim connections are steeper and not ADA accessible
Map & elevation
The route
Loading the Dead Horse Point map
Full mapElevation5,949–5,963 ft
Plan your hike
Before you go
Parking
Safety
The highest, rockiest slopes around here are a summer buffet for grizzly bears.
Dead Horse Point Tour Guide
Your drive to Overlook Trail, narrated.
Parkwolf is a GPS audio tour guide for Dead Horse Point State Park. As you drive, it chimes in with what’s ahead: hidden gems, upcoming stops, history, geology, and wildlife, right through your car’s speakers.
Recorded for this trailhead
Dead Horse Point Overlook0:00 / 0:30
“You're coming up on Dead Horse Point Overlook, the stop I'd keep if you only have time for one canyon view.”
Plays as you drive up to this trailhead in the Parkwolf Dead Horse Point Tour Guide.
More stories near here in the app
- Wingate Campground and Yurts
- Kayenta Campground
- Visitor Center and Desert View
- Visitor Center Rim Trails
- 11 audio storiesacross Dead Horse Point’s roads, triggered by GPS as you drive
- Wildlife heatmapsfor Raven, Whiptail Lizard, Fence Lizard, and 1 more
- Works offlinemaps, 21 trails, 22 places, and audio download before you lose signal
- CarPlay readysimple controls built for the drive
“Fantastic app with many points of information… It’s great to just turn on while you’re driving and it gives you an audio tour of the national Park. We love it!!!!”
Trail guide
Hiking Overlook Trail
A short walk to the main viewThe Overlook Trail is a paved out-and-back from the overlook parking lot to the main shelter…
The Overlook Trail is a paved out-and-back from the overlook parking lot to the main shelter and Colorado River viewpoint. The mapped path is about 0.07 mile each way, or 0.14 mile round trip. It takes only a few minutes to walk; give yourself around 15 minutes if you want to sit under the shelter and take in the canyon.
Where the pavement goesThe paved main path is ADA accessible and easy.
The paved main path is ADA accessible and easy. At the shelter, other paved paths branch east and west toward more viewpoints and the East and West Rim trails. Those are separate extensions, not part of this short walk; they climb more steeply and include short slickrock sections, and they aren’t ADA accessible.
Look down to the riverThe overlook faces the Colorado River and canyon country roughly 2,000 feet below.
The overlook faces the Colorado River and canyon country roughly 2,000 feet below. The bands in the cliffs come from sediments laid down by ancient oceans, lakes, streams, and windblown dunes. For a photo, leave some of the red rim in the foreground and catch the river bend below it; that gives the canyon its scale.
The story behind the nameA local legend says cowboys once fenced off the narrow neck of the point to corral wild…
A local legend says cowboys once fenced off the narrow neck of the point to corral wild mustangs, then left some of the horses without water. The story says they died within sight of the Colorado River. It’s a grim story, but it’s told as legend rather than established history.
Wildlife
Wildlife in Dead Horse Point
33 sightingsRavenMost seen around 6 PMSighting map
16 sightingsWhiptail LizardMost seen around 10 AMSighting map
34 sightingsFence LizardMost seen around 8 AMSighting map
42 sightingsSide-blotched LizardMost seen around 9 AMSighting mapSighting maps show where each species has been reported across Dead Horse Point. Wildlife moves, so no sighting is guaranteed.
