Lower Mill Canyon

3.8/5 (11 reviews)
Highland, Utah (Utah County)
Last Updated: 11/24/2022

Trail Information

Highlights

Referred to as American Fork Canyon to the local wheelers, this is one of the few awesome places to offroad near Salt Lake City or Provo. Lush green forest and plenty of camping are to be expected throughout the trail. It is fairly well traveled so you will probably not be alone but there are enough trails to explore that you won't on somebody's back all day. You will get a good taste of what the Utah mountains have to offer as far as the greenery and steep inclines. There are a number of fun obstacles to test anybody's limits, but almost all of them have a bypass if you feel that they are too hard. Camping is everywhere up here and this is as close to the city as you can be while being "away from it all".

Trail Difficulty and Assessment

Trail Navigation

Trail Reviews

3.8/5 (11)
Official Crew
106700
Seasonal Closure
Visited: 11/24/2022

Closed for the season! See you next year!
Open
Rated 4/5
Visited: 09/24/2022
Difficulty Accuracy: Spot On

Very pretty drive that's definitely worth doing if you live in the valley. Somewhat crowded on the weekend, but nothing annoying. Will probably do again to explore some of the other offshoots and/or camp in the summer. Good easy trail to take visiting family on as well for a day trip.
Official Crew
5900
Seasonal Closure
Visited: 03/17/2022

Went up to check on the status, gate is still closed for the season. You can get to Tibble Reservoir but are unable to start this trail at all yet. Reservoir is currently frozen, views of the peaks around it are beautiful with the snow on them. Campgrounds on the road up to the reservoir are currently closed (gates) for the season still as well.
1700
Open
Rated 4/5
Visited: 08/14/2021

This trail was a lot of fun for our family of 4 in the Tacoma. We have a small 2" lift and slightly oversized tires (~32") and found this trail to be pretty easy. No scraping whatsoever even though about 85% of the trail is rocks (not gravel, rocks anywhere from 8-16"). Unfortunately on a Saturday afternoon the trail was extremely busy with other road vehicles and tons of ATVs and UTVs. Mostly there are plenty of areas to pass, but it's very easy to encounter another vehicle in a narrow section that requires getting off camber or close to the cliff edge to make room. There aren't a ton of blind corners though, so just try to be aware of what is ahead of you and make note of wide areas that you can use. I had hoped it would be cooler this time of the year, but it was still 85-90F even at the end of the trail so we ended up keeping our windows up most of the time and using the AC. Overall I feel the rating was justified. I saw a number of AWD vehicles on this trail so it's definitely not too hard, but smaller/stock SUVs and trucks are likely to scrape in the many rock gardens without extremely good tire placement.
Open
Visited: 06/19/2021

Trail is insanely bumpy, went up this morning and was doing 2-8 mph. There are some midsized rocks but it was just common rocks that made it borderline not fun. Aired down my tires on my JLU and still was not pleasant. Once you get near to mile 3 and closer to Mary Ellen Trailhead it gets good. Went over to Midway and the Baker Fork trail was great fun. Mid 70's on June 19th.

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