Corner Canyon

Length: 4 mi
Relief: 2,500 ft
Elevation: 4,900 → 7,400 ft
Gradient: 600 ft/mi
Valley: faulted foothill canyon on a mega-landslide ridge
Drainage: Corner Canyon Creek

Overview

Corner Canyon is the trail mecca of the Wasatch Front's southern end — a working trail network, not a wilderness, draped across the east bench of Draper where the Wasatch Range butts up against the Traverse Mountains. More than thirty miles of purpose-built singletrack climb from the suburban interface near 5,000 feet through Gambel oak and bigtooth maple to the SunCrest ridgeline around 7,400 feet, part of a Draper open-space holding that runs to roughly 5,000 acres and, counting connectors, well over a hundred miles of trail. It is best known as one of the country's better municipal mountain-bike systems: directional flow trails like Clark's and Rush, the seasonal grotto waterfall on Ghost Falls, and Jacob's Ladder — a rock-drop descent that doubles as the hiking route toward Lone Peak. The ground itself is the surprise. The ridge the upper trails climb into is the East Traverse Mountains, a single Miocene mega-landslide that broke loose roughly six million years ago and slid some ten miles to where it sits today; the lower trails cross the wave-cut bench of Ice Age Lake Bonneville. That any of it is public is the second surprise: Corner Canyon was nearly sold for some 1,200 houses before Draper voters, Salt Lake County, and the Trust for Public Land preserved it as a regional park in the mid-2000s.

Can I ride today? Check before you go — Draper closes Corner Canyon when it's wet.

Corner Canyon's lower, machine-built trails are dirt, not all-weather surface, and Draper City closes them when they're wet to keep tires and feet from rutting soft tread into ruin. There is no fixed calendar for it: closures follow the weather, so a warm spring afternoon after a storm can shut the network even when the sky has cleared. Check Draper City's trail-conditions map (or the Draper City Trails & Open Space Facebook feed, where closures are posted) the morning you go, and when in doubt, stay off — a trail ridden wet keeps the ruts for a long time.

Mar–May Peak mud season and the highest chance you'll find trails closed. Snowmelt and spring storms keep the lower machine-built trails soft; the all-weather connectors — the cindered Access doubletrack, the eastbound Bonneville Shoreline Trail, and Rattler — drain fastest and often stay open when the rest is shut. Always check status before driving up.
Jun–Sep Prime, reliable conditions — the network dries out and rarely closes outside the odd summer thunderstorm. Ride south-facing lower trails early or late to dodge the heat (and watch for Great Basin rattlesnakes), or climb to the upper trails for cooler air.
Oct–Nov Fall is the other sweet spot: firm tread, peak oak-and-maple color, big weekend crowds. Late-fall storms can trigger short mud closures, and the upper trails start holding early snow. Verify status after any wet spell.
Dec–Feb Upper trails are usually under snow; lower trails swing between frozen-firm, rideable, and mud-closed depending on the freeze-thaw. The fast-draining all-weather connectors (the cindered Access doubletrack, the eastbound BST, Rattler) are the most dependable winter option, but conditions change hour to hour — check before every ride.

Draper City — Parks & Trails (official hub; hosts the Trail Conditions map)Draper City — interactive trail maps & conditions (official ArcGIS)Draper City — Rules & Trail Etiquette Corner Canyon Trails Foundation — Trail Conditions (links the live Draper closures map + Trailforks)Trailforks — Corner Canyon region status (crowd-sourced)Draper City Trails & Open Space (Facebook — closure announcements)

Tributaries & side-drainages

Named tributary drainages of Corner Canyon
Name	Side	Notes
Ghost Falls drainage	south	Short south-side drainage holding the seasonal grotto waterfall that gives Ghost Falls its name; it dries up in warm months. Crossed by the Ghost Falls and Canyon Hollow trails.
Bear Canyon	south	South-side drainage that climbs out of the Corner Canyon network toward the Lone Peak Wilderness boundary; the Jacob's Ladder hiking route and the Bear Canyon suspension-bridge trail follow this corridor. Elevation gains here run far above the canyon proper.
Maple Hollow	east	East-side drainage below the SunCrest ridge, carrying the Maple Hollow and Eagle Crest trails through bigtooth-maple groves that color the canyon in October.

Activities

Mountain Biking

Mountain biking is Corner Canyon's headline act and one of the best municipal trail systems in the country — more than thirty miles of purpose-built singletrack that can absorb a full day without repeating a trail. The network climbs on sustained but mellow grades (Canyon Hollow, Clark's, Rattler) and descends on bermed flow and rock (Rush, Eagle Crest, the technical Jacob's Ladder), with the seasonal grotto waterfall on Ghost Falls as the signature stop.

systemTrailMiles: 30+
elevationRangeFeet: ≈5,000–7,400
signatureClimbs: Canyon Hollow, Clark's Trail, Rattler
signatureDescents: Rush, Jacob's Ladder, Eagle Crest
networkType: interconnected municipal trail network

Areas: Ghost Falls / Canyon Hollow; Clark's & Rattler climbs; Jacob's Ladder & Rush descents; Maple Hollow / Eagle Crest; Traverse Ridge & SunCrest

Corner Canyon Trail System — 32 mi
Ghost Falls Trail — 2 mi
Canyon Hollow — 2.3 mi
Clark's Trail — 1.6 mi
Rattler Trail — 1.1 mi
Jacob's Ladder — 1.5 mi
Rush Trail — 2.5 mi

Season: April–November; lower trails dry out first, upper trails hold snow into spring

Regs: Several trails are directional and/or downhill-only — observe posted arrows and yield to uphill traffic. Class 1 e-bikes only on designated trails (Class 2/3 restricted); verify current signage. Draper City closes trails when wet to prevent rutting.

A quick after-work loop on Ghost Falls runs about 1.5 hours; a full network day can stack 4,000+ feet of climbing. The lower trails are machine-built berms and hardpack; the upper trails turn rockier and more natural over the brecciated landslide rock. Trail status is posted by Draper City — do not ride when trails are flagged closed for mud.

Hiking

Corner Canyon is as much a hiking and trail-running system as a bike park — the same network carries walkers, runners, and dog owners, with the family-favorite Ghost Falls grotto and the long, steep Bear Canyon / Jacob's Ladder route toward Lone Peak at the two ends of the spectrum.

marqueeHike: Ghost Falls (seasonal grotto waterfall)
biggestObjective: Lone Peak via Bear Canyon / Jacob's Ladder — a strenuous, steep, mostly shadeless climb into the Lone Peak Wilderness

Areas: Ghost Falls grotto; Bear Canyon suspension bridge; Bear Canyon → Lone Peak Wilderness; Bonneville Shoreline Trail

Season: March–November for the bench; the high Lone Peak objective is a midsummer outing

Regs: Dogs allowed on-leash below the Bonneville Shoreline Trail but banned in the watershed area above it (off-leash only at Draper dog parks, never on trails). Yield to and stay alert for bikes on shared and directional trails.

Ghost Falls is the signature short hike — best in spring runoff (April–May), often dry by late summer. The Lone Peak hike via Jacob's Ladder is a serious, exposed climb: carry several liters of water and start early; little shade and no reliable water above the trailhead.

Trailrunning

Corner Canyon is one of the Salt Lake Valley's premier trail-running venues — mellow, runnable grades on the lower loops, big vertical on the climbs, and a dense, well-signed network that hosts races and after-work efforts year-round.

Areas: Ghost Falls loop; Bonneville Shoreline Trail; Canyon Hollow / Clark's climbs

Season: March–November

Heavy multi-use traffic on weekends; observe directional signage and yield to faster bike descents on shared trails.

Equestrian

Horseback riding is a long-standing use, anchored by the Draper Equestrian Center near the canyon mouth; several lower and connector trails are horse-legal.

Areas: Andy Ballard Equestrian Center area; lower connector trails

Season: Spring–fall

Not all singletrack is horse-appropriate; follow posted use designations. Bikers and runners should yield to horses.

Trail roster

Which trail, and in what order? Sort by distance, climb, or difficulty. Climbs gain elevation, descents give it back, connectors run two-way.

Featured trails in Corner Canyon
Trail	Distance	Climb	Direction	Difficulty
Ghost Falls Trail	2 mi	650 ft	Climb ↑	Moderate
Canyon Hollow	2.3 mi	600 ft	Climb ↑	Moderate
Clark's Trail	1.6 mi	600 ft	Climb ↑	Moderate
Rattler Trail	1.1 mi	250 ft	Two-way	Moderate
Jacob's Ladder	1.5 mi	50 ft	Descent ↓	Expert
Rush Trail	2.5 mi	100 ft	Descent ↓	Moderate

Build your loop

Rattler & Bonneville Shoreline Loop (family / shoulder-season)

2.8 mi 350 ft climb Beginner

Bonneville Shoreline Trail → Rattler Trail → Bonneville Shoreline Trail

The lowest, driest loop in the system: a short lap on the Bonneville Shoreline bench linked by Rattler, the all-weather connector that drains fast after storms. Almost no sustained climbing, two-way traffic, and the first ground rideable in spring while everything above is still mud.
Canyon Hollow up, Ghost Falls down (signature loop)

4.3 mi 650 ft climb Intermediate

Canyon Hollow → Ghost Falls Trail → Rattler Trail

The classic Corner Canyon lap and the one to ride first: grind up the smooth, sustained Canyon Hollow climb, then descend the machine-built berms of Ghost Falls past the seasonal grotto waterfall (running in spring, a dry slot by late summer — the 'ghost'). Roughly a 90-minute after-work outing.
Clark's & Rush flow loop

4 mi 869 ft climb Intermediate

Clark's Trail → Rush Trail

The flow-rider's pairing. Clark's is the uphill-only climb — smooth surface, a sustained ~12% grade that is pure fitness — earning the long bermed descent down Rush, a downhill-only flow trail where speed builds fast. Mind the posted arrows: both trails are one-directional.
Ann's Rim big loop

10 mi 1,200 ft climb Intermediate

Clark's Trail → Ann's Trail → Bonneville Shoreline Trail

The all-day intermediate tour, stitching Clark's up to the Draper rim, Ann's long traverse across the upper bench, and the Bonneville Shoreline back to the trailhead. Mellow grades for the distance, big valley views, and the most mileage you can string together without dropping into expert terrain.
Jacob's Ladder & Rush technical loop

14 mi 2,769 ft climb Expert

Ghost Falls Trail → Ann's Trail → Jacob's Ladder → Rush Trail

The full-value technical day: climb the length of the system to the upper ridge, then descend Jacob's Ladder — rock drops, off-camber ledges, and tight exposed switchbacks over the brecciated landslide rock — before flowing out on Rush. A black-diamond descent with real consequence; not a first lap.

Geology

Corner Canyon's bedrock story is the unusual part. The ridge the upper trails climb is the East Traverse Mountains mega-landslide: a roughly 57–62 km² mass of shattered (brecciated) Oquirrh Group quartzite and limestone that detached near the Little Cottonwood stock and slid about ten miles to its present spot in the late Miocene, around six million years ago — one of the largest landslides documented in the Wasatch. The active Salt Lake City segment of the Wasatch fault runs along the foot of the range, offsetting the Lake Bonneville shoreline about 65 feet and making the lower bench a well-studied paleoseismic site. Ghost Falls drops over resistant beds within the slide mass and dries up seasonally — the 'ghost' of its name.

The Ridge That Slid Ten Miles

The thing worth knowing about the ground under the upper trails is that it isn't in place. The whole ridge Corner Canyon climbs into — the East Traverse Mountains, the spine under SunCrest and Potato Hill — is the deposit of a single enormous landslide. In the late Miocene, somewhere between about 6.6 and 6.1 million years ago, a slab of Oquirrh Group quartzite and limestone one to two kilometers thick broke loose near the roof of the Little Cottonwood stock and slid roughly sixteen kilometers — about ten miles — to where you now park your car. It covers roughly 57 square kilometers — closer to 62 if you count the flanks now buried under younger valley fill — and volume estimates run from 75 to 150 cubic kilometers. For decades it was mapped as a faulted block of bedrock. Recent work — a BYU thesis and a 2025 Geosphere paper — reinterprets it as one catastrophic mass movement, one of the largest landslides documented anywhere in the Wasatch.

That history is written into the rock you actually ride over. Oquirrh Group quartzite is hard, blocky stuff, and where it sits in place elsewhere in the range it stands up in clean ledges. Here it's shattered. Seventy to eighty percent of it has been broken into fragments smaller than an inch across, and pervasive brecciation runs through the whole mass — clasts under ten centimeters, rock crushed against itself. The rock gardens on Jacob's Ladder, the chunder on upper Clark's, the loose tech on Rush: that is the inside of a landslide, the brecciated guts of a mountain that came apart in motion. You are not riding on the slide. You're riding in it.

The clinching evidence is at the base, where geologists find pseudotachylyte — rock that was frictionally melted and quenched back to glass — in veins running from a centimeter to a meter thick, along with cataclasite, finely ground fault rock. You don't melt quartzite by sitting still. That records a mass moving fast and hard enough to generate flash heat along its sole. The slide also came to rest on top of younger valley fill, including a datable fallout tuff in the Jordan River Narrows; a slab of older rock lying on younger ash with no roots beneath it is a landslide, not a bedrock block, and that buried tuff plus uranium-bearing opal is what brackets the age. The lower trails, for contrast, sit on the orderly wave-cut bench of Lake Bonneville, where the Wasatch fault has since offset the shoreline about 65 feet — slow, tidy mountain-building, a hundred-thousand-year clock running right below the wreckage of a single bad afternoon six million years ago.

How geologists know it's a landslide

Pervasive brecciation: 70–80% of the Oquirrh Group rock is fractured to clasts under ~2.5 cm (less than an inch), with shattering throughout the mass into fragments under 10 cm — in-place bedrock doesn't crush itself wholesale like that.
Pseudotachylyte and cataclasite along the base — friction-melted rock quenched to glass, in veins from 1 cm to 1 m thick — record rapid, high-friction movement, not static faulting.
The slab is structurally rootless: older Oquirrh Group rock rests on top of younger valley fill and a fallout tuff (Jordan River Narrows member), exactly the relationship you get when a mass slides over the landscape rather than rising in place.
Datable bracketing: uranium-bearing opal and the buried fallout tuff pin emplacement to between ~6.62 ± 0.07 Ma and ~6.1 ± 0.9 Ma.
Composition and geometry trace the mass ~16 km back toward the northeast, to the roof zone of the Little Cottonwood stock — a source area for a slab that no longer has any bedrock connection to it.

Every rock garden on the upper trails is the rubble of a mountain that broke loose and slid ten miles — you're not riding on a landslide, you're riding inside one.

Biek, R.F., and others — Utah Geological Survey, 'The Traverse Mountains: New Geologic Maps and Explosive Suburban Growth' (Survey Notes).
Chadburn, R.R., 'Nature and Origin of the East Traverse Mountains Mega-Landslide, Northern Utah' — M.S. thesis, Brigham Young University (ScholarsArchive etd/8771).
Keith, J.D., and others, 'A gigantic Miocene landslide in the Wasatch Range, Utah, USA,' Geosphere, v. 21, no. 6, p. 1043–1081 (2025).
Utah Geological Survey — The Wasatch Fault (Public Information 40); Traverse Ridge paleoseismic site studies.

Bedrock

Mountain mass / upper trails (Traverse Ridge, SunCrest, Potato Hill): Brecciated Oquirrh Group — shattered quartzite, limestone, and sandstone within the East Traverse Mountains landslide mass (Pennsylvanian–Permian rock (~320–270 Ma), emplaced as a landslide in the late Miocene (~6 Ma)) — The entire ridge the upper trails climb is not bedrock in place but a single enormous landslide deposit — Oquirrh Group rock pervasively broken into fragments, with pseudotachylyte and cataclasite near its base recording the catastrophic slide. This is the rock most riders see in the rock gardens of Jacob's Ladder, Rush, and the upper Clark's.
Lower slopes and trailheads (Draper bench): Lake Bonneville shoreline gravels, alluvial-fan deposits, and deltaic sand and gravel (Late Pleistocene (~18,000–15,000 years ago) and younger) — The lower trailheads and the Bonneville Shoreline Trail sit on the wave-cut bench and gravels left by Lake Bonneville at the foot of the range.

Notable formations

East Traverse Mountains mega-landslide — the entire ridge above Corner Canyon is a single ~57–62 km² mass of brecciated Oquirrh Group rock that detached near the Little Cottonwood stock and slid roughly ten miles to its present position in the late Miocene (~6.1–6.6 Ma), one of the largest landslides documented in the Wasatch Range
Lake Bonneville shoreline bench — the wave-cut Bonneville and Provo benches are etched across the lower trails; at Corner Canyon the Bonneville shoreline is offset about 65 feet across splays of the Salt Lake segment of the Wasatch fault
Ghost Falls grotto — a seasonal waterfall dropping over resistant beds in the slide mass; it dries up in warm months, giving the falls and the trail their 'ghostly' name
Traverse Ridge paleoseismic site — fault trenching here records earthquake ruptures spanning the boundary between the Salt Lake City and Provo segments of the Wasatch fault zone

Relationship to Lake Bonneville

When Lake Bonneville stood at its highest (the Bonneville level) roughly 18,000–15,000 years ago, its waves cut a bench into the foot of the Traverse Mountains here, and the lower Corner Canyon trailheads and the Bonneville Shoreline Trail follow that bench today. At Corner Canyon the Bonneville shoreline is offset about 65 feet across several splays of the Salt Lake segment of the Wasatch fault — a clean, much-studied measure of how much the mountain front has risen since the lake drained.

Active processes

Active faulting on the Salt Lake City segment of the Wasatch fault along the foot of the range — the same fault zone that offsets the Bonneville shoreline here
Slow erosion, gullying, and rockfall reworking the shattered landslide mass on the upper trails
Seasonal mud, rutting, and freeze-thaw on the trails during spring snowmelt and after storms — the reason Draper closes trails when they are wet

Sources

Biek, R.F., and others — Utah Geological Survey, 'The Traverse Mountains: New Geologic Maps and Explosive Suburban Growth' (Survey Notes).
Nature and Origin of the East Traverse Mountains Mega-Landslide, Northern Utah — M.S. thesis, Brigham Young University (ScholarsArchive etd/8771).
'A gigantic Miocene landslide in the Wasatch Range, Utah, USA,' Geosphere (2025).
Utah Geological Survey — The Wasatch Fault (Public Information 40); Traverse Ridge paleoseismic site studies.

Ecology

Vegetation zones by elevation
Zone	Elevation	Dominant species
Oak–maple / mountain brush (lower and mid bench)	~5,000–6,500 ft	Quercus gambelii, Acer grandidentatum, Artemisia tridentata, Amelanchier spp., Cercocarpus spp.
Mixed conifer / aspen (upper, north aspects)	~6,500–7,400 ft	Populus tremuloides, Pseudotsuga menziesii, Abies concolor

Timberline: 9,000–9,500 ft

Wildlife: mule deer, Great Basin rattlesnake, coyote, red-tailed hawk, golden eagle, rock squirrel, occasional moose

The defining ecological note for trail users is the Great Basin rattlesnake, common on the lower, south-facing oak-brush slopes from roughly May through September — almost always on or beside the trail, almost never a problem if you watch your feet and give it room. The Gambel oak and bigtooth maple that cloak the bench give Corner Canyon its famous October fall color, one of the draws that fills the trailheads on autumn weekends. Unlike the fully closed Cottonwood canyons a few miles north, much of the lower Corner Canyon network is dog-friendly — but only on-leash, and only below the Bonneville Shoreline Trail. The upper canyon is a designated culinary watershed supplying Draper's drinking water (managed by WaterPro), and dogs are banned there entirely; dogs are never allowed off-leash on the trails. It remains one of the most heavily shared systems on the Wasatch Front, among bikers, hikers, runners, and dog walkers.

History

Corner Canyon's human story is short and decisive: working foothills above pioneer-era Draper (settled 1849) that were nearly lost to a ~1,200-home development in the early 2000s and instead preserved as a regional park in the mid-2000s through Draper City, Salt Lake County, the state Quality Growth Commission, the Trust for Public Land, and voter-supported funding. A 2008 master plan and a decade-plus of city and volunteer trail-building turned it into one of the country's premier municipal mountain-bike systems. Above it all sits the far older drama in the rock — the six-million-year-old Traverse Mountains mega-landslide and the Ice Age Bonneville bench.

Bought by Ballot: How Corner Canyon Stayed Public

For most of its modern history Corner Canyon was private ground — a consortium of landowners holding roughly a thousand acres of oak-brush bench above Draper. In 2003 those owners brought forward a development plan: more than 1,200 housing units stepping up the foothills toward the Traverse Ridge. On the fastest-growing edge of the Salt Lake Valley, with the SunCrest subdivision already climbing the skyline to the south, it was a plausible future. What stopped it was not a lawsuit or a moratorium but a purchase.

The Trust for Public Land brokered the deal and assembled the funding. In November 2004 Draper voters approved a $7 million open-space bond — at the time the largest single open-space bond passed in Salt Lake County. The Trust and the city then co-applied to the state's Quality Growth Commission and to Salt Lake County, each of which added roughly half a million dollars, and after about seven months of negotiation the owners agreed to sell. On November 4, 2005, the partners announced the permanent protection of 1,021 acres for a purchase price near $13.6 million, with Salt Lake County holding a conservation easement over the ground. It was the largest conservation purchase in the city's history.

The land was the foundation; the trails came after. Draper adopted a Corner Canyon Master Plan on August 5, 2008, and over the following decade city crews and community volunteers — organized in part through the nonprofit Corner Canyon Trails Foundation — built out the thirty-plus miles of purpose-built singletrack the canyon is now known for. The 1,021 acres of 2005 have since grown, through later county and city conservation deals, into one of the largest municipal open-space holdings on the Wasatch Front. The houses were never built.

Trust for Public Land — 'Campaign to Save Corner Canyon a Success (UT)' (tpl.org/media-room/campaign-save-corner-canyon-success-ut)
Trust for Public Land — 'Corner Canyon, Our Work in UT' (tpl.org/our-work/corner-canyon)
Deseret News — 'Draper buys 1,021 acres for open space' (Oct. 29, 2005) (deseret.com/2005/10/29/19919866/draper-buys-1-021-acres-for-open-space/)
Corner Canyon Trails Foundation — History (cornercanyontrails.com/history)

Wilderness designation

Lone Peak Wilderness — designated 1978 by Endangered American Wilderness Act of 1978 (30,088 acres). Corner Canyon itself is NOT wilderness, but its upper drainages — Bear Canyon and the Jacob's Ladder route — climb to the boundary of the Lone Peak Wilderness, the 11,253-ft granite massif that towers over Draper. The wilderness is shared with Bells and Little Cottonwood canyons to the north.

Recreation development

Corner Canyon's modern identity dates to a conservation fight in the early 2000s. The canyon lands were slated for a large residential development — on the order of 1,200 homes — when Draper City, Salt Lake County, the State of Utah's Quality Growth Commission, and the Trust for Public Land assembled funding, easements, and a voter-supported bond to buy and preserve the ground as a regional park in the mid-2000s. Draper adopted a Corner Canyon Master Plan on August 5, 2008, and over the following years city trail crews and community volunteers — including the nonprofit Corner Canyon Trails Foundation — built out the purpose-built singletrack network the canyon is now known for. Draper today markets one of the largest municipal open-space and trail systems on the Wasatch Front.

Key events

~6 Ma The East Traverse Mountains break loose as a single mega-landslide and slide ~10 miles to their present position — the ridge Corner Canyon's upper trails now climb
~18,000–15,000 BP Lake Bonneville cuts the shoreline bench at the foot of the Traverse Mountains; the Wasatch fault later offsets it ~65 ft
1849 Mormon pioneers settle Draper; the Corner Canyon foothills are used for grazing, timber, and watershed
1978 Lone Peak Wilderness designated above the canyon's upper drainages
2003 A residential development of more than 1,200 housing units is proposed for the ~1,000 acres of private Corner Canyon land
2004 Draper voters approve a $7 million open-space bond (then the largest in Salt Lake County) to help buy Corner Canyon
2005 The Trust for Public Land, Draper, Salt Lake County, and the state Quality Growth Commission preserve 1,021 acres (~$13.6M) as a regional park with a county conservation easement (Nov 4)
2008 Draper adopts the Corner Canyon Master Plan (August 5)
2000s–present City crews and the Corner Canyon Trails Foundation build out the modern 30-plus-mile singletrack network

Notable figures

Corner Canyon Trails Foundation — community nonprofit credited with much of the canyon's volunteer trail-building and stewardship
Trust for Public Land — conservation partner in the mid-2000s preservation that kept the canyon public

Modern issues

Wet-trail (mud) closures

Status: Active management practice — Draper City closes Corner Canyon trails when they are wet to prevent rutting and long-term damage, and posts status on its trails page and social media.

As of: 2026-06-01

The most common 'can I ride/run today?' question at Corner Canyon. Spring snowmelt and post-storm mud trigger temporary closures, especially on the lower machine-built trails. Check Draper City's trail status before going.
- https://www.draperutah.gov/living-in-draper-city/parks-and-t...
E-bikes and multi-use congestion

Status: Class 1 e-bikes are permitted on designated Corner Canyon trails; Class 2/3 are restricted. Many trails are directional and/or downhill-specific to manage heavy weekend traffic among bikers, hikers, runners, and dog walkers.

As of: 2026-06-01

Corner Canyon's popularity is its main management challenge. Directional trails, uphill-yield etiquette, and the Class 1 e-bike rule exist to keep a crowded multi-use system safe. E-bike rules and directional designations change — verify current Draper City signage before relying on them.

Verify before publish.
- https://www.draperutah.gov/living-in-draper-city/parks-and-t...

Access & regulations

Road

Corner Canyon Road / Highland Drive / Traverse Ridge Road (Draper City access) — Municipal trailhead access roads (no through scenic byway) . Trailheads are open year-round and paved; the trails themselves close when wet, and upper trails hold snow into spring.. Low for road access. The operative closure is trail-by-trail: Draper City closes muddy trails to prevent rutting, posting status on its trails page and social media.

Trailheads

Corner Canyon Trailhead (Main / Potato Hill) (5,100 ft) — Large paved lot off Highland Drive; vault toilets, bike wash, trail kiosk . Primary access; connects to Canyon Hollow, Ghost Falls, Ann's Trail, and the wider network. Fills early on weekend mornings.
Orson Smith Trailhead (5,050 ft) — Lot along 1300 East; overflow common on busy days . Northern access; direct connector to Ghost Falls and Clark's Trail, and to the Bear Canyon suspension bridge.
Coyote Hollow Trailhead (5,300 ft) — Mid-size paved lot . Central access to the Clark's / Rattler / Ghost Falls hub on the south side of the network.
Traverse Ridge Trailhead (Upper / SunCrest) (6,200 ft) — Small lot at the SunCrest development . Higher-elevation, top-down access; useful for shuttle-style descents on Rush, Jacob's Ladder, and Eagle Crest.

Watershed & use rules

Drinking-water supply: Yes — strict rules apply
Swimming: Not allowed
Wading: Allowed
Dogs: Allowed

Corner Canyon is not a fully closed culinary canyon like the Cottonwoods, but the upper canyon — everything above the Bonneville Shoreline Trail — is a designated watershed that supplies Draper's drinking water (managed by WaterPro), and dogs are banned there entirely, on or off leash. Below the BST, dogs are allowed on-leash; off-leash is permitted only at Draper's designated dog parks, never on the trails, and violations are a Class B misdemeanor. There is little open water beyond the seasonal Ghost Falls grotto and Corner Canyon Creek. The other operating constraint is mud: Draper closes trails when wet to prevent damage.

Trail rules & etiquette

Corner Canyon is a heavily shared, city-managed network, so its rules are about traffic and timing more than wilderness ethics: ride or run only when the trails are dry, follow the posted direction of travel, and sort out who yields to whom on a system that mixes bikes, hikers, runners, dogs, and horses. Draper City posts the rules and the day's open/closed trail status, and that status is the one to check before you leave the house.

Check the trail status before you go — Draper City asks riders and runners to stay off wet and muddy trails to prevent rutting and erosion in the area's clay soil, and posts current trail conditions on its online trail-conditions map; a few all-weather connectors are built to drain and stay open year-round.
Travel in the posted direction — Some trails are directional or downhill-only — Rush is a well-known one-way descent — so follow the arrows at the trailhead and junctions rather than assuming a trail runs both ways, and verify designations on the current map since they change.
Yield to uphill traffic — When you are descending, give way to anyone climbing — it is the standing convention on the network's two-way trails.
Bikes yield to everyone — Draper's posted etiquette puts cyclists last in the pecking order: yield to hikers, runners, and horses in any direction of travel.
Announce yourself around horses — Equestrian use is long-standing here; slow down and vocalize your presence so the horse and rider know you are coming, and let them pass before you do.
Class 1 e-bikes only — Only pedal-assist Class 1 e-bikes are allowed on Corner Canyon trails; Class 2 and Class 3 are not permitted.
Leash dogs and keep them below the watershed — Dogs are not allowed in the Corner Canyon watershed area, which Draper City defines as everything above the Bonneville Shoreline Trail. Below that line dogs are allowed on-leash — on the Bonneville Shoreline Trail and the trails beneath it — with off-leash use only at Draper's designated dog parks. Service dogs and law-enforcement or search-and-rescue dogs are exempt.
No camping, fires, firearms, or motors — Camping, campfires and open flames, hunting, firearms (including paintball, airsoft, and archery), smoking, and motorized vehicles (ATVs, dirt bikes, remote-control cars) are prohibited across the open space.

Fees: No entry or parking fee. Corner Canyon is a free Draper City regional park.

Permits: No permit required for day use. Standard Lone Peak Wilderness rules apply if you continue past the Corner Canyon boundary toward Lone Peak.