About this permit
The Wave is a sandstone formation inside Coyote Buttes North, itself a small piece of the 112,500-acre Paria Canyon-Vermilion Cliffs Wilderness. BLM limits visitation to protect it, and the cap is hard: a daily maximum of 64 people.
Those 64 come from two completely separate lotteries. The advanced lottery awards 48 people and up to 12 groups, whichever comes first, and you apply during the calendar month four months before your hike month (January for a May hike), with the draw running at 9 a.m. Mountain Time on the 1st of the following month. The daily lottery awards the other 16 people and up to 4 groups. It works differently: you apply two days before your hike, between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m., from a mobile device, and you have to be physically inside the geofenced area to do it. A laptop will not work.
Maximum group size is 6 in both lotteries, and every person counts, including infants who are not walking. Dogs do not count against the quota but must be on the permit and carry their own fee. If your group hires a BLM-authorized guide, that guide counts against neither the group size nor the daily limit; you get one guide per group. A $6 fee applies to each application and $7 per person on top for a winning permit. Everything is non-refundable and non-transferable, and no America the Beautiful pass gets a discount.
BLM calls the suggested route a strenuous, physically demanding 6.4-mile round trip. There is no trail. Permit holders get a route description with a map, a photo guide and GPS coordinates, and are expected to navigate with them.
The route
From Wire Pass Trailhead, the route follows a wash for about a mile before climbing onto slickrock. There is no marked trail: navigation relies on photo waypoints provided by the BLM and GPS coordinates. Twin Buttes serve as the primary landmark.
The terrain shifts from sandy wash to deep sand dunes to sculpted slickrock. The Wave itself sits in a bowl between rock formations, invisible until you're nearly upon it. Two main chutes compose the classic 'Wave' formation, but the surrounding 1,600 acres of Coyote Buttes North contain dozens of additional features worth exploring: The Second Wave, The Boneyard, Top Rock Arch, and prehistoric dinosaur tracks.
Why it matters
The Wave is one of the planet's most remarkable examples of cross-bedded sandstone: ancient sand dunes turned to stone, then carved by wind and water into sinuous, flowing lines. Discovered by hikers in the 1990s, it has become the holy grail of landscape photography and a pilgrimage site for geology enthusiasts worldwide.
The feeling
Nothing prepares you for the moment you crest the rise and The Wave appears. It's not just a formation: it's a portal to deep time. The flowing bands of red, orange, and cream were ancient sand dunes 190 million years ago. Now they ripple like frozen waves, drawing your eye along curves that seem impossible in stone. You'll spend hours exploring every alcove and chute, watching the light shift and reveal new details.
