2016 Road Trip - Canyonlands National Park

Canyonlands National Park is virtually across the street from Arches so we visited both parks over the same time. With large expanses of canyons the park is aptly named. Much of the park is accessible only by four wheel drive vehicles which limited what we could see with our minivan, but we still were able to explore two of the major sections of the park.

We first drove the Island in the Sky area which is a drivable mesa that rises 1000 feet about canyon floors. Every view point offered a new perspective of the vast canyons below. The views were difficult to process as the expansive and varied levels of formations where overwhelming. Like Arches is was very hot, but we were able to do a short hike to Mesa Arch which formed a natural window overlooking the canyons below.

The next day we drove through the Needles area which was on the floor of the canyons. We hiked the Cave Spring trail which took us to an old cowboy camping spot and even older Native American petroglyphs. The trail continue up some ladders which allowed us to loop back to the trailhead.