Yesterday I drove 4 1/2 hours southish from Salt Lake City to Canyonlands National Park Dead Horse Point State Park in Utah. I wish I had a little more time as I wanted to visit Arches National Park as well. Either way though I saw a lot of great sites. I tried to take some pictures which you see in this video but really I don’t think any images or video can really do this place justice. It was larger then life amazing.
Here’s a little history thanks to wikipedia:
Canyonlands National Park is a U.S. National Park located in southeastern Utah near the town of Moab and preserves a colorful landscape eroded into countless canyons mesas and buttes by the Colorado River the Green River and their respective tributaries. The park is divided into four districts: the Island in the Sky the Needles the Maze and the rivers themselves. While these areas share a primitive desert atmosphere each retains its own character. Two large river canyons are carved into the Colorado Plateau by the Colorado River and Green River. Author Edward Abbey a frequent visitor described the Canyonlands as “the most weird wonderful magical place on earththere is nothing else like it anywhere.
The Colorado River and Green River combine within the park dividing it into three distinct districts. Below the confluence the Colorado River flows through Cataract Canyon.
False Kiva stone circle
The Island in the Sky district is a broad and level mesa to the north of the park between Colorado and Green river with many overlooks from the White Rim a sandstone bench 1200 feet (366 m) below the Island and the rivers which are another 1000 feet (305 m) below the White Rim.
The Needles district is located east of the Colorado River and is named after the red and white banded rock pinnacles which dominate it but various other forms of naturally sculptured rock such as canyons grabens potholes and a number of arches similar to the ones of the nearby Arches National Park can be found as well. Unlike Arches National Park where many arches are accessible by short to moderate hikes or even by car most of the arches in the Needles district lie in back country canyons and require long hikes or four-wheel-drive trips to reach them.
The area was once home of the Ancestral Puebloans of which many traces can be found. Although the items and tools they used have been largely taken away by looters some of their stone and mud dwellings are well-preserved. The Ancestral Puebloans also left traces in the form of petroglyphs most notably on the so-called Newspaper Rock near the Visitor Center at the entrance of this district.
The White Rim Sandstone
The Maze district is located west of the Colorado and Green rivers is the least accessible section of the park and one of the most remote and inaccessible areas of the United States.
A geographically detached section of the park located west-northwest of the main unit Horseshoe Canyon Unit contains panels of rock art made by hunter-gatherers from the Late Archaic Period (2000-1000 BC) pre-dating the Ancestral Puebloans. Originally called Barrier Canyon Horseshoe’s artifacts dwellings pictographs and murals are some of the oldest in America. It is believed that the images depicting horses date from after 1540 AD after the Spanish re-introduced horses to America.
A subsiding basin and nearby uplifting mountain range (the Uncompahgre) existed in the area in Pennsylvanian time. Seawater trapped in the subsiding basin created thick evaporite deposits by Mid Pennsylvanian. This along with eroded material from the nearby mountain range become the Paradox Formation itself a part of the Hermosa Group. Paradox salt beds started to flow later in the Pennsylvanian and probably continued to move until the end of the Jurassic.15 Some scientists believe Upheaval Dome was created from Paradox salt bed movement creating a salt dome but more modern studies show that the meteorite theory is more likely to be correct.
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