Mile Post 14 Utah 128, UT, 84532, 866-812-2002,
Rates: Mini-suites with kitchenettes and separate dining areas start at $220 per night for two people; two-bedroom cabins start at $320 per night for two. Each additional person $20; pets $20 per night. Parking is free. Check website for deals and packages.
Stay here if you: long to wake up along the glorious River Road or want to horseback ride during a Moab visit.
It’s close to: the Colorado River, which runs alongside the property, and Utah 128, which sits on the other side. Moab is 14 miles away.
The rooms are: tidy, simple and filled with pine furniture; each room has a TV and small desk, and the cabins have sleeper sofas. The beds and pillows aren’t particularly comfortable, but they’re adequate. Both the suites and the cabins are spacious, and the cabins sit in a row right along the river and offer stunning views of the cliffs. The cabins can be noisy, though — during the day machinery moves along the pastures, and at night cars are in and out.
They put all of the money into: the horse program, which is exceptional (see cover story), as well as the on-site winery and the quirky movie museum, a collection of movie posters and memorabilia from Westerns filmed in the area and some even right on this space, which has been a working ranch since the late 1800s.
The bottom line: I’ve been driving past this property for nearly two decades and had been dying to stay, but Red Cliffs is one of those places that promises much but sometimes falls short. The front desk is understaffed and continually makes you feel as though every time you need something, you are bothering them (there is a lot of sighing and putting you on hold). The restaurant has an ambitious menu, but the meals, too, came up lacking, took hours and were expensive — and driving into Moab all the time becomes tiresome, so you’re sort of a captive audience. The kitchenettes in the cabins aren’t all that helpful, because you can only do so much with a microwave and a mini-fridge; thank heavens I brought a waffle iron. That said, if I were staying in Moab again, I would make plans to horseback ride with their outfit again in a heartbeat.
Kyle Wagner
