Tag: Canyonlands

Canyonlands National Park: Departing the Plateau

Saturday, February 18, 2023 was our final afternoon of adventure on our return trip to Moab, and Sean and I spent it having a look at a few last views from the Island in the Sky District of Canyonlands National Park and from Dead Horse Point State Park. It had been a huge trip, even if, because of the weather, we had done significantly less hiking than we’d initially thought we would. But seeking alternatives to hiking led to our exploring further afield. Without the snowstorm, we probably would not have ended up at Natural Bridges or Bears Ears. It was yet another example of unexpected conditions in the National Parks leading to remarkable experiences.
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Canyonlands National Park: Mesa Arch and a Snowy Hike

Mesa Arch

Saturday, February 18, 2023 was our last full day in Moab, and Sean and I planned to spend it up in the Island in the Sky District of Canyonlands National Park. We had been there the previous Sunday to start the trip’s adventures, and now we we would bookend the trip with a return to see the things we had missed, including a very famous arch. And we also wanted to go on a proper hike, finally.
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Canyonlands National Park: Snow Amid The Needles

It was approaching 3pm on Thursday, February 16, 2023 when Sean and I drove into the snow-laden Needles District of Canyonlands National Park. Down below the canyon rims, but still above the junction of the Green and Colorado Rivers, The Needles District is known for its many miles of hiking and backpacking trails amid a wonderland of red rock formations. That afternoon, as we continued our snowy driving tour to points south of Moab, we were lucky to see the red rock country blanketed white beneath a beautiful blue sky. While snow is fairly rare in The Needles (the higher Island in the Sky District gets more), they had received over a foot of snow in the same storm that had merely dusted Moab.
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Canyonlands National Park: Upheaval Dome

On Sunday, February 12, 2023, Sean and I concluded our first afternoon in Canyonlands National Park with a visit to a giant hole in the earth. In a landscape rich with dramatic topography, Upheaval Dome in the northwest portion of the Island in the Sky, is a unique mystery. Scientists are unsure how this two-mile wide, basically round hole formed.
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Canyonlands National Park: On the Island in the Sky

Established in 1964 during the Lyndon Johnson Administration, Canyonlands National Park protects over 337,000 acres of the Colorado Plateau in southeastern Utah. It is adjacent to Glen Canyon National Recreation Area to the west, Deadhorse Point State Park tothe northeast, and Bears Ears National Monument to the south/southeast. At the heart of Canyonlands National Park is the confluence of two of the West’s most famous rivers, the Colorado and the Green. These rivers are foundational to the Park’s wildly eroded landscape, filled with sheer cliffs, towering buttes and hoodoos, sinuous canyons, and expansive flats. The Park is divided into three main districts, dictated by geology. To the southeast is The Needles, defined by the rock formations and hoodoos for which it’s named. To the southwest is The Maze, remote and rugged canyon country. To the north is the Island in the Sky, a great peninsula jutting south some 2,200 feet above the confluence of the rivers.

On the afternoon of Sunday, February 12, 2023, Sean and I took in some big views from the Island in the Sky.
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Canyonlands National Park: Onto the Colorado Plateau

On Saturday, February 11, 2023, Sean and I returned to southeastern Utah’s portion of the immense Colorado Plateau. The plateau sprawls across 130,000 square miles of Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona. Its huge uplift extends from the Colorado Rockies in the east to the Utah’s Wasatch Range in the west. It’s southwestern edge rises as Arizona’s Mogollon Rim above the Sonoran Desert. It encompasses Arches, Canyonlands, Bryce Canyon, Zion, Grand Canyon, Petrified Forest, and Mesa Verde National Parks. It includes dozens of other Park units, including Dinosaur, Colorado, Hovenweep, Natural Bridges, Grand Staircase-Escalante, and Bears Ears National Monuments. And it encompasses the Navajo and Ute Nations, as well as hundreds of sacred sites like Chaco Canyon, Shiprock, Sleeping Ute Mountain, and Canyon de Chelly.
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Return to Moab: Planning

Junction Butte and Grand View Point, Island in the Sky, from The Needles District, Canyonlands National Park

In February 2023, Sean and I returned to Moab, Utah, almost exactly a year after we’d first visited. In 2022, we had gone to the storied outdoor adventure town for a long weekend visit to Arches National Park. We had enjoyed the hotel we’d stayed in—The Radcliffe—so much that, while we were checking out in 2022, I had gone ahead and booked us the same lovely room at The Radcliffe for ten days in 2023. That 2022 trip had focused on diminutive Arches, but the 2023 trip would incorporate its massive companion Parks, Canyonlands and Capitol Reef, completing our visits to the National Parks of Utah.
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Havasu Canyon, Grand Canyon: Above the National Parks

Zion National Park

“Wait, did you quit your job to go to the Grand Canyon?”

I was on a tour bus somewhere in rural North Carolina. Next to me was Steve, the inspiring executive director of a conservation organization in northwestern Illinois. We were in North Carolina for the annual Land Conservation Conference. We’d been on a rainy field trip most of the day and now were on our way back to Raleigh. I had been telling Steve about our upcoming Grand Canyon trip, less than a week after the conference. In thinking through the timeline, Steve realized that I would not be in Chicago for my former employer’s very important event, which he was going to attend. It was the sort of function that a staff member would not dream of missing.

“I won’t necessarily say that I quit my job to go to the Grand Canyon, Steve,” I replied with a grin. “But if you want to spread that rumor, I won’t stop you.”
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