Wednesday September 20th
I left early, somewhere around 7am, and drove two and a half hours or so to Canyonlands National Park. The drive was through some rather desert-like landscapes, with with low, rather eroded-looking hills. I did a short stretch in the middle at 80mph on highway I-70, then turned off south for the last part, where it started looking more canyon-like.
The turn off to Canyonlands had some impressive formations along it, and the road wound up, with a great view after a hairpin bend, of the road and canyon area below.
I arrived at the entrance to the park, to be greeted with signs marking how long it would take to get to the gate if the traffic was banked up to that point – I passed the two hour sign, and I think then stopped with traffic backed up to the one our sign. I wasn’t happy! But they were pessimistic signs, I think it took about 25 minutes to get through the gate.
It was getting toward 10 as I got in and went to the short hike to Mesa Arch. There was an amazing view over large areas of canyons, very dry, I’m not sure if there was any vegetation. The arch itself was quite impressive, and I got some good photos of it, with some of the distant background, and some nice morning light on it.
From there I headed to the end of the main park road, to Grand View Point. The car parks was full, and there were vehicles parked just off the road wherever they could find a spot. Some spots off the road were too sloping to park the van, but I ended up finding a spot I could fit into, thank the Lord.
There was an hour or so hike along the edge of a canyon, with spectacular views over the desert, with its striking red-brown colours, appearing almost completely devoid of vegetation. Near the end of the walk was a large rock that people could get up on, and take photos. There were a group of youngish people on there, and I waited my turn and got up there when they’d finished.
The whole park was quite elevated I think, around 6,000 feet. I drove back towards the park entry, and off another smaller offshoot road, to have a look at Upheaval Dome, an interesting area with white coloured rock, about 15 minutes from the parking lot.
Back on the road a bit from there was Whale Rock, another fairly short hike. There was more vegetation in some of these areas. I met someone while walking and had a nice little chat along the hike. The people were quite friendly.
Lunch was at an overlook off the road. It was quite windy, though a warm and sunny day. From there, on the way back to the park entrance, I stopped at an offshoot to see the Green River Overlook. There was a river winding through the barren desert canyons, and it did indeed look green!
Further toward the entrance again I came to The Neck, and Shaeffer Canyon overlook, looking down over the edge of the canyon to an almost impossible-looking road winding, serpentine-like, down into the canyon, with a lot of switchbacks, then for what looked like an enormous distance along the relatively flat canyon floor. I could see cars driving along the road, slowly. I spoke with someone who had driven it the previous day, who said he left the 4WD in first gear basically the whole way down.
On to the visitor centre I went, and took a last look at the canyon, then headed off to the rather strangely named Dead Horse Point State Park. I had read that this was a great place to see the sunset. It was about half an hour’s drive from Canyonlands, getting me there a bit after 4. My national parks pass had got me into Canyonlands, but this was a state park, so I had to pay entry. It was quite a small park, but spectacular. I was glad it was small, because I was keeping an eye on the fuel gauge. It had suddenly and drastically reduced the distance to empty it was showing, which was perhaps now about 80 miles. This was still plenty to get to Moab where I was going, but I didn’t want to see any more sudden drops, and there wasn’t too much room for error if I had taken a wrong turn going to Moab or something, and gone well out of my way.
The park was on something of a spit of land projecting into the deep canyon below. There was a nice overlook into the canyon near the visitor centre, then I drove a few kilometres to the end of the road, on the point that projected into the canyon. One of the nice things about the park was that it wasn’t too crowded. It was much less popular than Canyonlands, and parking was fairly easy. There were views of the canyon most of the way around. Sunset wasn’t till about 7.20, so I had time to do some walking. There was a trail that went around the canyon edge, I think all the way around. I walked some of this, to a spot where there was just a narrow neck of land with the road crossing it, and you could see into the canyon quite easily from both sides.
It was a beautiful place: the colours, especially in the afternoon light, were wonderful – lovely reds, oranges and browns, with the Colorado River running through the canyon on one side, with a strip of green alongside it. I kept seeing the Colorado River in so many places I went! The colours got more beautiful as sunset approached. I scouted out somewhere which would be nice to see the sunset from, then went off to make dinner. I took one of the camp chairs out to a place with a nice view, and had a very scenic dinner! It was one of the few times while I was in the van that I didn’t have dinner at a campground.
There were quite a few people there to see the sunset. It was lovely to see, though I think the lead up to it was even more beautiful. I stayed for a little while after sunset, wondering if there would be a mass exodus at some point, and wanting to get out before then. I drove to Moab, mostly in the dark, keeping a close eye on the fuel, and glad that it was downhill a lot of the way. I was very glad to get to a service station, and have it accept my card (not all did!), and fuel up.
Moab was quite a decent sized place, and I drove through what seemed like a labyrinth of streets to get to the RV park where I was staying, called Pack Creek campground. I’d asked the owner if there would be any problems getting there late, and their main concern had been that I might have trouble backing into the site without much lighting. I did try to get to campgrounds in the daylight to avoid this, but most of the campgrounds I’d been to didn’t have much lighting, and I was pretty used to backing into sites by then.
As it turned out, the main problem was actually finding the site! I tried to follow what I’d seen on the map as the way to the site, and ended up in some corner of the park which clearly wasn’t what I was looking for. The signs marking the site numbers were at the back of each site, making them hard to see in the dark. Eventually I found it by seeing where it was in relation to one of the toilet blocks, and getting out and having a look at the site numbers at the back until I found it. The sites were wide, and backing in was the easy part!
My windscreen was looking into the back window of the caravan parked behind me, so it wasn’t very private, but I pulled the curtains before I went to bed. It was a very warm night, especially since only two or three nights previously it had been regularly around freezing. This night was about 20 degrees, and I slept with only a sheet in my summer pyjamas, instead of thermals, winter PJs, and a sleeping bag for extra warmth!
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