Wednesday, October 19, 2005
More Canyons, More Arches
Down the road from the state park is the much larger Canyonland National Park. This park is divided into 3 sections and we visited the one called Island in the Sky. The “island” is joined to the rest of the land by a narrow “neck” of land. The views of the canyons are beautiful, you can see the Colorado River and from one point the Green River. The most interesting spot in the park was a place called Upheaval Dome — white / grey rocks were pushed up from underneath forming a dome (the top of the dome has eroded into a bit of bowl) — a real contrast to the red walls around it.
The map showed an alternate route back to Moab and after checking with a ranger and learning that they recommended a four wheel vehicle with high ground clearance (our truck is four wheel drive with reasonably high clearance) we decided to take it. The first section of “the road” involved driving down from the high plateau. The road was very narrow, had sharp hairpin turns, was extremely steep and had a surface composed of broken rocks, some bits of gravel and sand as well as some deep ruts and washouts. Of course there were 2 vehicles coming up the hill while we were going down — we saw them a couple of hairpin turns ahead so we stopped when we reached one of the few wider section of road and let them pass. Driving in the bottom of the canyon was breathtaking. It’s one thing to look down into the canyon but it’s a totally different feeling to look up at the walls and rocks. At one point we looked across the valley and saw a Hummer sitting on the plateau overlooking the Colorado River — it reminded me of a TV commercial.

the Canyon below dead horse point

A mule deer buck alone a park road side

The famous two headed mule deer

A view down into the canyon and a very interesting road

Same road, going across bottom of canyon and to the potash salt drying lakes in the distance

That road again

No one said this was going to be an easy road to drive on, let alone meeting anyone

Part way down, the view is great

At the bottom, and the river

The Potash salt drying lake at the bottom of the canyon makes a nice reflecting pond
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