Canyonlands National Park

Just a few miles beyond Arches National Park is the turn-off for Canyonlands National Park.  Canyonlands is beautiful in its own way, but is a bit of an odd duck with multiple personalities.

There are three main parts to the park.  The first, Island in the Sky, is the most accessible and is a high mesa.  To the southeast is The Needles.  The entrance is 1 1/2 hours south of Moab with a paved road to a visitor center.  But from there on out, a four-wheel drive vehicle, off-road vehicle, or hiking is required.  Finally there is The Maze, to the southwest.  It is the most primitive and least accessible of the three sections.  Why The Maze?  Because, as you might guess, people get lost there.  85% of this park is back country, inaccessible by car. 

The first formations one sees upon entry into the park are the Monitor and the Merrimack, because they resemble the ironclad battleships by those names, best known in connection to the Civil War. 

The following views are from the Island in the Sky, as one drives through the park on the main road, stopping at various viewpoints.  We were there on a very hazy day, so conditions for photography were not optimal, but you get the idea.

The final viewpoint for the Island in the Sky looks out over the area where the Colorado and Green Rivers converge.  The Green River (2) created The Island in the Sky by flowing down the west side; the Colorado River (1) flows down the east side.  Are you beginning to see why this park is called Canyonlands?

The photo below isn't great because of the great distance from the viewpoint.  But this is as close as one can get to The Needles from The Island in the Sky.

Returning back along the main road, there is a turn-off to an anomaly upon which scientists do not agree.  It is a large round hole in the ground.  It could have been made by a meteor, or perhaps by ancient sea salt that was forced up, then dissolved by rain, leaving a hole into which rocks collapsed.  It is very different from the surrounding landscape. 

Not too far from here is another viewpoint from which visitors can get a decent view of the sinewy Green River.

Canyonlands has a couple of arches of its own.  The arch below is the most accessible, and is of a smaller scale than those at Arches NP, of a more friendly and human scale.  It looks over the canyon carved by the Colorado River.

More canyons in Canyonlands!  These canyons are not as deep as the Grand Canyon, which is a few hundred miles to the south, but are certainly impressive in their own way.

Beautiful!

In our travels throughout the national parks, we heard so many different languages.  It was gratifying to know that people from other countries appreciate the beauty of our parks as much as we do.  It seemed to me that the ratio of English-speaking people was about equal to the number of people speaking languages I did not understand.  We also saw a few RV's shipped over from Europe.  They look very different from those manufactured in America.  The RV below, Lee says, is also an off-road vehicle.  I thought it was very odd.

Next, Monument Valley!