Nick and Sari's Great American Roadtrip: Canyonlands National Park (Island in the Sky)

You can see for yourself in the pictures that it is another absolutely gorgeous day. I know its the desert and all, but I guess I just didn't expect such picture perfect skies, no clouds, no wind, no rain, and so warm...in the middle of November. Even so, we are told that its a little warmer than it usually is this time of year, so we lucked out big time.

We went to Dead Horse Pass State Park first. Everyone we had met over the last couple of days in Moab (either locals or people we met at Arches the day before) said it was fantastic and we should go. It was on our way to the north entrance (Island in the Sky) of Canyonlands National Park anyway, so we just went to Dead Horse Pass first. As always, Spunky had a great time...he loves being out in the sunshine having his picture taken.

For some reason I find the legend behind the name of the park very sad so hopefully its not true! Despite the horrible park name, the scenery was beautiful.

No walking trails, just miles and miles of unspoiled beauty. As its the off season, there are very few visitors to the parks so we usually have it practically to ourselves.

The Legend of Dead Horse Point
Dead Horse Point is a peninsula of rock atop sheer sandstone cliffs. The peninsula is connected to the mesa by a narrow strip of land called the neck.

According to one legend, around the turn of the century the point was used as a corral for wild mustangs roaming the mesa top. Cowboys rounded up these horses, herded them across the narrow neck of land and onto the point. The neck, which is only 30-yards-wide, was then fenced off with branches and brush. This created a natural corral surrounded by precipitous cliffs straight down on all sides, affording no escape. Cowboys then chose the horses they wanted and let the culls or broomtails go free. One time, for some unknown reason, horses were left corralle
d on the waterless point where they died of thirst within view of the Colorado River, 2,000 feet below.

Don't fall Spunky...it's a long way down!!!

Then we drove the short distance to Island in the Sky entrance of Canyonlands. We stopped at the Visitors Center to get a map and suggestions of particularly good vistas and hikes not to be missed (there were many). The first stop was an easy hike to Mesa Arch. Its an easy approach and it doesn't look like much, but it actually stretches over a huge canyon...there is nothing behind and below!

When you get a little closer and actually climb on top, its a little freaky. The arch was a few feet accross so there was plenty of room to walk, but I didn't like it...

Nick however, had no problem...

Next we drove to The Grand View Point Overlook and even the views from the lookout point in the parking lot were awesome.

We hiked for about a mile along the canyon edge (no rails or fence, btw)

to the end of the Grand View Overlook Point, which overlooked Junction Mesa...the large Mesa that separates the Colorado and Green Rivers. There was a huge rock face at the end of the point that we could climb up. Standing on top, we had a complete, unobstructed, 360 degree view of the Canyons...absolutely stunning. Those Panoramics are HUGE files, so I'm not gonna include them here right now. To give you some perspective, this is a small panoramic that Nick took from the top of the rock and I'm in the picture.

We bumped into a few of the same people at Canyonlands that we had seen the day before at Arches. Other than a handful of people though, we basically had the park to ourselves. It seemed to increase the expansiveness and awesomeness of the canyons. Going in the off season has its advantages.

We were also told where there were petroglyphs off Potash Rd, which we would pass on our way back to Moab, so before sundown...and after snapping many more pictures of the exact same things we took pictures of on the drive in, but that looked totally different now with the sun setting on them...