After more than a year of litigation from BRC and sustained pressure from the motorized recreation community, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is reopening the discussion on hundreds of miles of OHV route closures in Utah’s San Rafael Swell and San Rafael Desert. Both Travel Management Plans (TMPs) originated from settlement agreements with the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA) that determined which routes are open to motorized use and which are closed. Those decisions shut down hundreds of miles of historic routes, restricting recreation access, traditional use, and local economies.
The BLM has released a new alternative for the San Rafael Desert and the San Rafael Swell that revisits previous route closures and considers reopening routes that were closed through earlier decisions and settlement agreements. The San Rafael Desert and San Rafael Swell are premier destinations surrounding Moab for outdoor recreation, offering opportunities for motorized travel, world renowned off-roading and singletrack, camping, hunting, sightseeing, and exploration. The BLM is proposing to re-open 19.82 miles in the San Rafael Desert and 226 miles in the San Rafael Swell. While this still leaves hundreds of miles of routes closed from the original decisions, this is a great step in the right direction.
BlueRibbon Coalition has been at the front of this fight. In 2025, BRC filed a federal lawsuit challenging the San Rafael Swell TMP, arguing that the BLM had unlawfully created de facto wilderness “buffer zones” to justify closing routes that had existed for decades, long before the surrounding wilderness designations. The agency has not stated what prompted this new alternative. What is clear is that this reconsideration follows years of litigation, public comments, and grassroots pressure from off-roaders, ranchers, and rural communities who refused to accept the closures as final.
You can look through the interactive map of which routes are proposed to be re-opened for both management areas.
Or reference the maps below: proposed routes to be re-opened (green) or re-opened with width limitations (orange) on the left; and current route designations on the right.
San Rafael Swell
The San Rafael Swell encompasses more than 1.1 million acres of BLM-managed land and roughly 40% is comprised of multiple Wilderness areas that do not allow any form of mechanized use— the most restrictive land management designation.
Timeline
- 2017 – The Department of the Interior entered into a settlement agreement with SUWA requiring the BLM to complete new or revised travel management plans for multiple Utah planning areas, including the San Rafael Swell.
- 2019 – Dingell Act Signed into Law. Congress passed the John D. Dingell Jr. Conservation, Management, and Recreation Act, which established the San Rafael Swell Recreation Area, designated new wilderness areas, and created the Jurassic National Monument within the broader planning area. These designations significantly affected travel planning and route inventories.
- 2024 – The BLM released preliminary alternatives and later a draft Environmental Assessment analyzing multiple route network options ranging from more restrictive to more access-oriented alternatives.
- December 31, 2024 – Final Plan Released in the final days of the Biden Administration. The BLM finalized the San Rafael Swell TMP and selected “Alternative E”. Under the final plan roughly 665 miles total were designated closed to OHV use
- 2025 – BlueRibbon Coalition challenged the final plan in federal court, arguing that portions of the decision unnecessarily restricted access and failed to properly account for public use and applicable legal requirements. BRC also filed a preliminary injunction on behalf of Paul Wells, a multi-generational rancher whose only legal access to his family’s historic Marsing Ranch was eliminated by the closures. SUWA intervened in the litigation in support of the BLM closures.
- 2026 – The BLM releases a new alternative reopening 226 miles of previously closed routes in the San Rafael Swell for public review and comment.
Routes Being Reconsidered:
San Rafael Desert
Timeline:
- 2017 – The Department of the Interior entered into a settlement agreement with the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA), requiring the BLM to revisit travel management decisions across large portions of Utah.
- 2020 – The BLM finalized the San Rafael Desert Travel Management Plan, closing 414 miles of routes.
- 2022 – Following litigation from SUWA (again), specifically on the San Rafael Desert TMP, the BLM entered into an additional settlement agreement committing to reconsider a number of routes in the San Rafael Desert. BRC was defendant intervenors on this decision but a backdoor decision was made without BRC and motorized recreation users in the room. Roughly 120 miles of routes additional were closed in this decision.
- 2026 – The BLM has now released a new alternative as part of the reconsideration process, reopening the discussion on those route closures and evaluating options for restoring access.
Routes Being Reconsidered:
This reconsideration shows that pressure works. Legal action, public comments, and the persistence of the off-road community have put hundreds of miles of closures back on the table. None of it happens without BRC members and donors who fund the lawsuits, the comments, and the field work that keep public lands open.
The fight isn’t over. The BLM still needs to hear from off-roaders, hunters, ranchers, and anyone who values public access. Use the tool below to submit a comment in support of reopening these routes. The public comment period closes June 8, 2026.
