Wilson's Arch along the road heading to Moab.
Our first peak into the Canyonlands National Park from the Needles overlook.
When you see the bottom of the canyon you are amazed to see there are canyons in the canyon!
In the Island in the Sky district most views showed the La Sals in the background. It was gorgeous.
Canyonlands is huge and most of it is only accessible with 4 x 4 jeeps. This is what the NPS website says about 4 x 4's in Canyonlands...Four-Wheel DrivingThere are hundreds of miles of four-wheel-drive roads in Canyonlands, providing access to various campsites, trailheads and viewpoints in the park's backcountry. These roads range in difficulty from intermediate, like the White Rim Road at the Island in the Sky, to extremely technical routes like Elephant Hill in the Needles and the road to the Land of Standing Rocks in the Maze.
Permits are required for all overnight trips in the backcountry. During the spring and fall, demand for permits frequently exceeds the number available. If you plan to visit Canyonlands during peak season, especially to camp along the White Rim Road, it is recommended that you make reservations well in advance.
All vehicles must remain on established roads and must be "street legal." ATVs are not permitted. High-clearance, four-wheel-drive vehicles and some experience are required for most backcountry roads. Other vehicles (e.g. low-clearance all-wheel-drive or high-clearance 2WD) usually have difficulty negotiating the rough slickrock, loose rocks, deep sand and steep switchbacks found throughout the park. Jeff has put Moab, UT back on the list of places to visit as he wants to do backcountry jeep touring. Jeep rentals are a huge business in Moab and between Canyonlands and BLM lands there are endless places to drive. We didn't have time on this visit but our adventurous souls are calling us back some day. This is one of the roads descending into the canyon...do you see the tiny white jeep hugging the canyon wall?
Considering how many rock formations we saw on this trip, both of us swear we know this one from some car commercial.
I was "jittery" seeing how close some parents let their children to the edge for a photo...
until Jeff walked over and saw this edge was misleading as there was another ledge wall about 3 ft down...leave it to him to scare me by sitting on the ledge. I took a photo and as I did I heard another tourist say..."I can't believe she is risking his life to get a picture!"
A zoom shot of the deepest canyons.
We hiked to the Mesa Arch on the edge of the canyon.
The views through the archway were incredible...
and "said" VK moment to me :-)
Notice we are both wearing heavy treaded hiking shoes? All the brochures in every park we visited said the number 1 cause of injury in the parks is improper footwear. Most scenic views involve some walking and most of the trails look like this...
On our way out of Canyonlands we took a short side trip to Dead Horse Point State Park which has a legend of it's own. there are excellent views of the Colorado river winding through the canyons. This park is famous for being the site where the final scenes of the movie "Thelma & Louise" were filmed.
It is amazing to stand at the lookout and realize that there are rock layers 275 million years old below us.
Ruthie asked me to share about how we found out about these destinations and planned this trip. It's a long story but we had planned on a camping/motorcycling trip to CO in August which got canceled because of an employee unexpectedly quitting our business in late July. I was kinda "mourning" the loss of this getaway from the busyness of our lives, when one Saturday the local paper came out with an feature on a local reporter's trip to Moab & Arches National Park taken last November. My sis was actually visiting that day and witnessed me handing the paper to Jeff and saying "let's pack the up the car and head out on an adventure". Renae said that she has had friends that told her Utah was beautiful and that they actually liked Zion & Bryce Canyons better than the Grand Canyon so she too wanted to visit some day. At that point, I think they both thought I was joking about the roadtrip adventure and maybe I was, but the more I thought about it the more I felt we needed to go. So J spent a few days lining up work for the guys and I ordered a Utah map and packed the car with the picnic foods and camping stuff (we could see that most things we wanted to see did not have huge towns and lots of hotels available). In less than a week, we headed out early one morning with no hotel reservations, no set itnerary, a full tank of gas and a relaxed attitude, just knowing we had to be back in 12 days. We drove the interstates to get to St. George in two days and started out in Zion and just followed the roads that took us to the most sites along the route until we ended back up in Moab where we took in Arches as the last park in Utah before heading back on the interstates and zipping back through CO for a short trip into the destination we had planned for August. Utah is a WONDERFUL place to visit and in early October is has beautiful weather. It is the height of the European tourist season there and we were the minority in a sea of German tourists. We also heard lots of French and Italian being spoken. Most of the Germans were doing the "circle tour" of all these parks as well as the Grand Canyon and sites in NM, they had rented smaller RV's and camped alongside us in many of the same campgrounds and picnicked at many of the same spots as we did. I told my sister that I think she should fly to LV, rent one of these RV's and do the same and I would highly recommend it to any other nature/adventure seeker readers I may have here. For the hotel crowd, there is lodging in Springdale (Zion) and at Ruby's (entrance to Bryce) and in the little tourist town of Moab. Sorry for the long post...one more day of Utah tomorrow.
.JPG)
