Canyonland National Park

We got a late start yesterday before leaving for Canyonlands National Park. We finally headed out around 11:00 and first planned on stopping by Dead Horse State Park, only to discover there wasn't much to see really. So we continued on another 17 miles to Canyonlands National Park. It was on our list of To Do's before leaving Moab. Wow! I can't believe anything can make the Grand Canyon look small--but Canyonlands certainly does.

Canyonlands is 35 miles west of Moab and is the largest national park in Utah. The various areas of the park staggers the imagination. It is divided into three districts by the Green and Colorado Rivers: 1) Island in the Sky; 2) The Needles and 3) The Maze. Only Island in the Sky can be seen without the use of 4x4 vehicles. Each was named for their most prominent geologic characteristics, these districts are quite varied in what they have to offer.

The Island in the Sky section that we visited sits atop a massive 1500 foot mesa, quite literally an Island in the Sky. Twenty miles of paved roads lead to many of the most spectacular views in southeastern Utah. From these lofty viewpoints, visitors can see nearly 150 miles in any given direction, resulting in panoramic views that encompass thousands of square miles of canyon country. There are many hiking trails.

We did hike one trail, the one mile round trip to the Mesa Arch. Wow, it was really difficult to hike into the Mesa Arch. It's 6500 foot above sea level so I had a difficult time just trying to catch my breath. In addition, it was a much steeper climb than the park brochures indicated. The hike was classified as easy, huh! If that was an easy hike, I'll eat my shoe! Needless to say we didn't do any more hikes during our time in Canyonlands.

We had a terrific time yesterday in Canyonlands National Park. We took today (Sunday) 'off' and plan on going back to Arches National Park tomorrow to take pictures. We were there last week but there was a snow storm, and we didn't get any pictures. Tomorrow's supposed to be a sunny, warmer day so tomorrow we're off to Arches. Hopefully we'll have lot's of good pictures of Arches.

Tuesday it's chores day, laundry and getting stuff ready and packed for our travel day this Wednesday. We leave Wednesday and are heading to a city near Zion National Park. We've not yet decided exactly where we'll be staying...guess we'll figure that out one way or another, by Wednesday afternoon for sure! Well, that's about a wrap from here. We had a terrific day and hope you did as well.

Until later~