Canyonlands Crush

Canyonlands is what it says it is…a land of lots of canyons.  This shot was taken at Buck Canyon Overlook on the way to the Grandview Point in the Island in the Sky area of Canyonlands National Park. It was the nicest overlook we had today, and Marcia even road her GoGo to the fence area to see it for herself.

    

In the three pictures above, the upper left is the original shot, the one on the right is a blow up of a section of it, and the last picture is a blow up of a section of the second picture.  It is amazing all of the intricate details within each and every shot you take.

  

And besides canyons within the big canyon, there are many monument looking mesas or butts, never could figure out what the official name would be. 

 

A real find in this area is the Mesa Arch.

    

It is a little over a half mile hike, and there are stairs to go up and down, and when there are no stairs, there is smooth rock face to walk up or down, like the one in the upper right picture.

It isn’t long before you can see the arch, and why it got the name it did.  At this point, you are about half way to the arch.

The walk back to the car gives you views on the other side of the canyon.

  

You see, soon after you pass by the Visitor’s Center, the road comes to what they call “The Neck”, which is the first picture above.  The next two pictures are each side of the “The Neck”, so you really are driving over a thin neck of land.

At the end of the road you come to the Grand View Point.  Out there somewhere the Colorado River and the Green River converge into the Colorado River.  Eventually the Colorado will travel below through the Glen Canyon Dam, unite with the San Juan River, and eventually go through the Grand Canyon…and to many faucets throughout the Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and other communities down stream.  Due to the depth of the canyons below, you cannot see either rivers, unless you go out there in a jeep….and the answer is yes, people do that.

Maybe next time we will stay longer and take a jeep tour.  This guy is on the White Rim Road, which requires four-wheel drive.  There are much harder roads out there…allowing people to get close and personal with Canyonlands.