One of my favorite places in all of the United States is Canyonlands National Park near Moab, Utah. Canyonlands is divided into three sections, Island in the Sky (which is what this post is about), Needles, and the Maze. Each section is inaccessible from the other two, to get from one to another you have to leave the park and circle around, (which is a bit time consuming) so I just stayed on the Island while I was there. The Colorado and Green Rivers cut through the park, among other things the lack of bridges across them in the park is part of why you have to circle around. I would love to go back and explore the Maze, it's one of the most remote and hard to reach places in the US, you have to pack everything you need in and have a Jeep or 4x4 to access it, and the rangers ain't going to bother looking for you if you're MIA.
The Island in the Sky gets its name from being a mesa overlooking the rest of the park. For a sense of scale, those squiggly lines in the lower left of the photo above are roads... The little bit of green you can see is along the course of one of the rivers cutting through the park. If you have a four wheel drive vehicle or mountain bike you can take the White Rim Road around and below the Island. I was in a Ford Focus so I wasn't quite willing to risk trying it. Even without going on the White Rim there was still more than enough to keep a feller occupied.
As one would expect, there is plenty of hiking and scenic outlooks in Canyonlands, some of the best combine a little bit of both. A few of my favorites from my time there were Murphy's Point, Grand View Point Overlook, Aztec Butte, and Upheaval Dome.
Murphy's Point is pleasant little hike (about three and a half miles round trip) that takes you past some old ruined buildings that look straight out of some pioneer movie. You can see for miles once you reach the point, looking down the Stillwater Canyon and the Green River spread out below you. Getting there is fun, a good portion of the trail is rock and only cairns (stacks of rocks) mark where the trail goes. I only ran into a couple people the entire time I was there, a joint smoking guy from Colorado and an Israeli who tried to get me to explain Americans apparent obsession with RVs (I couldn't, I don't get it either).
Aztec Butte is a shorter hike, a little over a mile round trip, but it is more difficult. While much of it is flat like the Murphy's Point trail the last little bit is more challenging, with a climb of a couple hundred feet up some kinda steep slickrock slopes. It doesn't require any special expertise but proper footwear is a must (I found that the rubber of my tennis shoes gripped the slickrock better than my hiking boots did).
The trail circles the top of the butte and not only are there some spectacular views but as an added bonus you can see some ancestral Puebloan granaries that are close to a thousand years old.
The Grand View Point Overlook is one of my all time favorite places for golden hour photography, both of the above photos are from there. It's a rather mild mile hike but if you're going there to see the sunset be sure to bring a flashlight. A good bit of the trail is only marked by cairns and trying to find those in the dark while not walking off any cliffs could get a little challenging.
Last but not least is Upheaval Dome, which is what's left of a meteorite impact crater after 170 million years or so. A little over a mile and a half of hiking will take you to two different overlooks where you can view this three mile wide, thousand foot deep crater.
When I arrived at Canyonlands I had no idea about Upheaval Dome, I've ready plenty about meteorite impacts but never thought I'd actually get to see what was left of one. I don't know that I would consider it pretty but it is definitely pretty neat to see!
If you're every looking for a nice desert adventure, Canyonlands is a nice place to consider. It's usually on the warm side and always on the dry side so bring plenty of water if you visit. No post about Canyonlands would be complete without closing with a photo of the Chicken's Foot Canyon (my name, not the National Park Service's)!
