Uinta-Wasatch-Cache Forest closes Renegade Boat Ramp and Mill Creek access areas

The Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest has closed two high-use access points that matter immediately for Utah day-trippers: Renegade Boat Ramp and the upper Mill Creek Canyon access zone. In a forest that stretches across 2.2 million acres and draws about 9 million visitors a year, that kind of closure can ripple fast through a weekend plan, especially when the outing depends on a trailer turnaround, a trailhead parking spot, or a picnic-site pullout.

At Renegade Boat Ramp, the road and recreation site closure began April 27 and runs through May 20 under Forest Order #04-19-26-721. Crews and heavy equipment are repaving and repainting the boat ramp approach from Road 131 down to the ramp area, and the closure is in place for public safety. For boaters and paddlers, the practical hit is bigger than a closed lane: if you use Renegade to launch or retrieve, the work can change where you stage gear, whether you can safely swing a trailer, and how long the whole water day takes. The Heber-Kamas Ranger District is the contact office for that closure.

Mill Creek Canyon is dealing with a different kind of interruption, but it lands just as hard for hikers and picnickers. The closure covers the upper-area road, picnic sites, and trailheads while forest officials improve the upper Millcreek Canyon Road, boost user safety, expand access to recreational areas, and fix water-quality problems tied to erosion and outdated drainage infrastructure. That means this is not just a scenic-drive inconvenience. It is a trail-access problem that can force a new parking plan, a different trailhead, or a shorter canyon outing.

The canyon still matters as one of the Wasatch Front’s workhorse recreation corridors. Mill Creek Canyon is used for hiking, picnicking, biking, and winter sports, and its upper gate closes every year on November 1. Some picnic sites in the canyon still carry a $5 per vehicle fee collected when visitors exit, so the usual routine of driving up, finding a site, and paying on the way out can get disrupted when construction changes where people can actually enter and park.

There is a bigger infrastructure pattern here, too. The same forest is also rebuilding Port Boat Ramp on Pineview Reservoir with a new road, fee stations, and an aquatic species inspection area, and that full site closure is set to continue through 2026. For anyone trying to salvage a boat day or a canyon hike, the lesson is simple: verify access before leaving home, because the forest’s busy recreation corridors are changing in real time.