Dead Horse State Park and Canyonlands National Park

Cayonlands had a few arches too. Slightly better view though.

November 25th, 2013

I woke up just after the sun rose to explore new territory. Unlike the last stop, I was completely unfamiliar with Cayonlands. I hadn't even heard of it until I saw a sign on my way to Arches. After a little research I also learned about Dead Horse Point, which was on the way to the park.

Dead Horse Point overlooks an area used to trap horses to be used as new mounts. It is an outcropping of rock that has a cliff on 3 sides with the Colorado River at the bottom. Riders could chase the horses out onto the rock, close the gate, and have their pick of the horses. On their way out, they would open the gate and let the horses out. Well, they forgot the second step once and the horses became trapped and died; thus the name.

It is supposed to have fantastic views, so I was a little disappointed when I got there and saw this:

Stupid cloud. And this was taken in a "clear" patch.

There were clouds hanging out in the valley! The whole way there I followed blue skies and the clouds picked the valley as their hangout. I was a little disappointed, but decided to wait it out for an hour to see if it cleared up at all. I pulled out my knife and worked on my walking stick for a bit, wandered around some other paths to snap some of the other photo sites.

So close to clear!

I finally called it and decided I would stop again on my way back to town. Maybe the mid-day sun would burn off the clouds.

Looks like I made the correct choice!

Canyonlands is a HUGE park. A quarter of a million square miles huge. I explored the Island in the Sky district of the park. I am not even sure about how you reach the other districts in the park because the road sort of ends. There are 4 wheel drive roads, which must be how you get around off the main road.

The views here are simply stunning. This is by far one of the coolest places I have visited on the trip.

Love the mountains in the distance.

There are a lot of hikes that take you down into the canyon. I never took any because most of the trails were covered with snow, and I was pretty sore from all the walking at Arches. I did hike the Grand View Point Overlook trail. It was super cool because you could look out over the clouds in the valley.

Welcome to the edge of the world.

Almost looks solid

View from the end of the trail

I also hiked out to Upheaval Dome. This is a pretty cool geological oddity that has a dome surrounded by a crater. There were a few theories as to how it formed including a meteorite impact and a collapsed salt dome. I don't think they ever spelled out what it was on the trail.

After Upheaval Dome, I was done hiking for the day. I made my way back to Dead Horse Point. I was lucky because the sun was setting and it changed the rock to a brilliant red color. If you can, spend sunset at Dead Horse. You won't be disappointed.

The setting sun really brings out the colors in the rock. (Still Canyonlands)

Dead Horse.

If I had a decent camera, I would take shots of this every second until sunset. The colors were much more vivid in person.

After the sun set, I made my way back to Moab for the night. New destinations awaited early the next morning.

Click here for more pictures of Dead Horse and Canyonlands