Canyonlands is a vast and vastly underrated National Park. While it doesn’t have as many iconic sights and trails like its next-door neighbor Arches, it is one of those parks, like the Grand Canyon and Crater Lake, that defy reason, its immensity reminding us of our own smallness in time and place, its wonder the reason we explore and experience the natural world around us. It is the last of the Utah Mighty Five that I visited and it is just as awe-inspiring as the others.
My first foray was an afternoon visit to the Island in the Sky district, another example of brilliant naming though the origins of the moniker are lost to history. Driving across the flat mesa, I fancied myself in a sort of Hayao Miyazaki film as wisps of cloud lazily floated by. Surely some sort of witch or warlock magic had suspended this great island above the lands below. But the name truly makes sense when you experience any viewpoint. The mesa rises up to 2000 feet above the canyon below and the drop is sheer and the canyon expansive, creating the effect of an island quite different than, say, looking down on a valley from a mountain ledge where the slopes roll into a piedmont.
The canyon land itself is utterly alien. The Colorado and Green rivers have carved canyons within a canyon and the effect is bewildering. In most viewpoint-heavy parks, the usual procession is to walk to the view, contemplate it for a few moments, take a picture, and move on. Here, in Canyonlands, people linger. They sit and stare at an improbable landscape, trying to make sense of it all, tracing the path of the rivers, wondering and shaking their heads as they eventually make their way back to the trailhead.
The park has viewpoints right by a parking lot as well as primitive trails further along the rim of the mesa that call to the hikers among us. The end of these trails, which are no longer than a mile, include optional rock climbing for those seeking more angles of the world beneath them. They are also less crowded points in an already less crowded park, which adds to the feeling that civilization is a long ways away.
After a couple of viewpoints, I went up Aztec butte, a short but technically challenging hike that required significant ankle flexibility on the way up and the willingness to butt slide on the way down. I also eavesdropped on a fascinating conversation had by a few young women where they talked about sugar daddies, a topic whose origin was a desire to have nicer hiking boots. Although one of the women was hiking in bare feet, which was quite remarkable. In any case, I pass no judgment as career goals are different for all and the conversation was rather raucous and enjoyable.
The next day, my final full day of my trip, I made my way to the Needles district of Canyonlands for an epic hike. It’s quite the drive to get there: the distance between the Island in the Sky and Needles visitor centers is over 100 miles and only about 40 miles of that is highway. But like most drives in the area, it may be long but it’s never boring. The route to The Needles passes briefly through Bears Ears National Monument, which has been part of a tug-of-war with presidential administrations, and the fascinating petroglyphs of Newspaper Rock. The last two miles of my route were covered by a dirt road, chockful of bumps and grooves and blind curves, ending at the trailhead at Elephant Hill.
The Chester Park to Joint Trail lollipop loop is one of the best hikes I’ve ever done. Nearly 12 miles in full, it is exhausting. I started early-ish in the day but the weather in the region that day had completely cleared up and the sun blazed down without any clouds to filter it. I cannot imagine doing the hike on a hot summers day, let alone starting it in the early afternoon as I saw many people doing as I trudged back to my car at the end of the hike. And trudging it certainly was: the last two miles were a hazy mess of painful blisters, aching knees, mechanically scrambling down rocks I had a few hours scrambled up with gusto, and beautiful, just absolutely beautiful, views.
But the hike is glorious. Rock scrambling? Check. Slot canyons? Check. High desert scenery? Check. Bizarre and captivating rock formations? Check. A dirt road used by 4x4s? Check. OK, that last one isn’t so interesting but does provide a brief respite in the middle of the hike. The overall experience is amazing. Each hour, each mile, is different, with unique physical and mental challenges and diverse views of the world around. I knew there was a slot canyon but that didn’t stop it from being such a pleasant and exciting surprise. I saw very few people on the trail and the only sounds interrupting my own noisy passage were the occasional calls of wrens and jays.
And so my time at the national parks on this trip came to an end. From The Needles, I drove back to Grand Junction with a brief stop in town at Moab for lunch. I took the scenic route that winded along the Colorado River and, wow, the Colorado River on that stretch is definitely not scenic. It is brown and muddy and a bit anemic in places and I wonder if it was a result of the recent rains but I looked upon those rafting and tubing with a measure of confused pity. The byway itself though was scenic enough as the red rock rose high on either side of the road and, despite its lack of aesthetic qualities, the Colorado is a powerful waterway, the lifeblood of the Western states, and the center of what I believe will be the greatest environmental upheaval within the United States.
At a certain point the drive becomes quite unscenic as it rolls through flat land, devoid of anything but dirt. Mountains looming in the distance provide some relief but I nevertheless found myself hitting the accelerator harder so I could get past this area before my mind was lulled into the doldrums by the unceasing banality of the landscape. A ghost town called Cisco broke up the monotony somewhat but mostly to introduce a chill into my heart as it seemed like a place out of time: not of the past, but of some zombie apocalypse future.
The world is a wondrous place. The national parks are just a starting point. Throughout my travels in this area, I saw dozens and dozens of other places I would have loved to explore given time and proximity. Even around Grand Junction, a mostly forgettable place but with a charming downtown, I knew I could fill several days with exploration of rivers and mountains. The national parks are among our country’s greatest heritage and give us an incredible introduction to the awe around us. But there is so much more to explore and so much more adventure to be had. After all, not all those who wander are lost.