Canyonlands National Park is home to countless trails, dramatic views and some crazy roads.
Canyonlands National Park is probably my favorite park that I visited on my Utah-Colorado parks road trip. There was just so much to explore there! I love dramatic views, fun scrambling trails and ancient ruins and I found all three there! However, I only explored one small section of the park, the Island in the Sky. Canyonlands is one of those parks where you can truly explore for days. More reasons to return, I guess.
The Island in the Sky is the most visited section of the park. Luckily, crowds were at a minimum the days I was there, so I was able to find parking (which can be a problem here). I visited one afternoon and early morning the next day.
My first stop was the Shafer Canyon Overlook right past the visitor center, with the La Sal Mountains in the distance.
I walked out onto the promontory and got this wonderful view of Shafer Canyon. Shafer Canyon is famous for its winding dirt road, which you can see at the bottom. Canyonlands has an entire area only accessible by 4x4s.
The Shafer Trail Road is a doozy.
I headed to the very end of the scenic road, Grandview Point. I followed the trail to the end. Near the beginning is this lovely view. The Colorado River (former of many canyons) is below. You can also just make out the White Rim Road at the bottom. You can probably see why this park is called Canyonlands.
A little further to the right is Grandview Point and Junction Butte.
A closer look at Junction Butte at the very end of the Grandview trail.
Grandview Point overlooks the other side of the Island in the Sky mesa, giving you a look at the canyons of the Green River, which meets the Colorado River in this park. You can’t see the river from this vantage point, but the canyons can be seen in the distance.
A cool look at the Island of the Sky mesa, with the Green River canyon below.
The next morning, I returned to hike to Upheaval Dome. The trail starts out pretty easy to the first overlook, but if you continue to the second, you get to scramble. So much fun.
First glimpse of the awesome Upheaval Dome.
Scrambling along the bare rock to the Second Overlook reminded me of the trails at Acadia National Park in Maine. I miss those trails.
Upheaval Dome. There is still some question about how this all formed. The meteorite theory is currently in vogue.
I may have gone to the second overlook before the first. So here is the view from the first overlook.
My next stop was Aztec Butte. The trail separates into two spurs. One goes to the top of Aztec Butte, the other swings around to some Ancestral Puebloan granaries. I headed for the granaries.
The view from the trail that I followed was spectacular.
Such an interesting landscape.
Food was important, obviously, to the Ancestral Puebloans. They built granaries (used for any kind of food, not just corn) to store food. These granaries were often hidden in little nooks in the landscape, only to be found be the people that built them.
Two granaries would have stored food for a small family group, even if they didn’t live year-round in the area.
At the Green River Overlook, you can actually see the Green River and it’s green. Hence the name, I guess.
A zoomed in look at the Green River. The river also creates a little strip of green in this desert landscape.
My last stop is the most famous spot in the park, Mesa Arch. An easy trail leads you to a natural arch with a very dramatic landscape behind it. Don’t get to close though, there is a big drop between the mesa and the arch. It’s actually really hard to get pictures of this arch since people have to get their photo taken in front of everything these days.
The dramatic landscape without the arch. Much easier to get a photo of.
Canyonlands National Park is a beautiful area to explore, so many hiking trails. However, much of the park is only accessible by 4x4s but even the part of the Needles Area (my destination next time) can be accessed by passenger car.
Check out my next update where I visit Dinosaur National Monument!
