Canyonlands National Park

If Arches had been like walking around Mars, Canyonlands was the moon. Tall needle-shaped rock formations and canyons wider than the eye can see are a short drive away in Canyonlands National Park. If I'd spent the day before looking up to all the arches, I spent the next looking out into the wide horizon.


The park is made of three main districts: Island in the Sky, Needles, and the Mazes. We went with the former as our short introduction and were suitably impressed by the mesa plateau that we drove/hiked on, over 1000 miles above the rest of the terrain. The canyons were principally cut by running water (and receding seas) over millions of years and the layers in the rock formation are evident from certain views in the park - both the Colorado and Green rivers still run through the park.


We headed up to the Mesa Arch earlier in the day where my husband scrambled to the top of the arch for a photo opportunity, nearly giving me a heart attach 1500 feet above a canyon on a windy day. Sticking to the prescribed trail on the Island in the Sky, we didn't even scratch the surface of the magnificent 530 square miles of park land. We capped off the day with a "sound and light" canyonlands boat tour outside of Moab. Cruising down the Colorado, our guide pointed out shapes and figures in the surrounding cliffs until we turned around and bobbed back to Moab to accompanying music and dramatic lights.