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.

Arches and a Nasty Fall

How can you start a blog posting about Arches without a picture of an arch, or in this case, “arches”.  Above is a picture of Double Arch, from the car.  In the past I have walked up to and under the large arch in double arch…but there is no way Marcia can get there because there is no way the GoGo can make it.  One thing about Arches is that you can enjoy it from the car, from outside the car, or up close and personal.

Up and personal like this shot.  The Three Gossips, Sheep Rock, Tower of Babel, and The Organ and the rock climbers.

  

Here's a better look at the Gossips and Sheep Rock on the left, and this is The Organ on the right, which is only partially seen in the foreground right in the larger picture above these two….

Which leaves this one as the Tower of Babel, and in the upper left you can see two little dots near the top on the thin side of the mountain….headed up.

And if you think the title of this posting has anything to do with one of these guys….well, you would be correct….more of that later.

   

You enter the park, and after a stop at the Visitor’s Center, climb up some switchbacks to an amazing display of rocks and cliffs and colors and views.  You drive along for a few miles without seeing an “Arch”, and you don’t mind at all…it is just an awesome view.  

Soon, you come to the “Park View” where you can walk a mile, like these folks, over to see The Gossips, Sheep Rock, etc in an area they call “Coutthouse Towers”, (shown previously above)….or just stay in your car like we did and drive because you will be there in two driving miles.

Between Courthouse Towers and the Window Area, you can see a lot of Petrified Sand Dunes, a formation of very old sand dunes which have turned to stone under the weight of other material which has long ago washed away.

    

And as you come to the Widows area, you come to Balanced Rock and the surrounding formations nearby.  The top rock which looks “balanced” is the size of three school buses!  After you pass Balanced Rock, you take the spur road to the Windows Section.

Here at North Arch you can see just how large it really is in comparison to the people at the base of the arch.  South Arch is to the right of this arch, but we did not take the trail to see it…but I know you can get a picture of both arches side by side if you get at the right angle.

The double arch, as I mentioned before, is in the Windows Section, along with this formation of rocks called “Elephant Parade”.  Can you see the first two elephants?

The windows section is one of the more popular area of the park, and with everything to see, one could understand why.

Next we went over to the Delicate Arch Trail parking lot.  Above you can see people off in the distance on their 3+ mile round trip.

But the road to view Delicate Arch from other view points was washed out yesterday, and still under water.  They hope to have it open again tomorrow, Thursday at the latest.  Thank goodness this is one thing we did three plus years ago when I drove Marcia through the park quickly on our Utah trip due to my daughter’s surgery.  Not sure we will be back to see it this year because we still need to visit Canyonlands over the next two days.

While I excused myself to use the little boys room…Marcia snuck in a selfie to show off her new haircut.

Here we are looking 15 miles or so across Salt Valley at Devils Garden, which is where the road ends.  The single darker rock structure is called Dark Angel, and it is a 5 mile round trip walk to it from the parking lot at Devils Garden.

To get to Devils Garden, you have to pass by the Fiery Furnace, which is off limits to hikes without a ranger or a permit with you.

And some more wonderful rock formations.

   

And Broken Arch, which you can see most of it from the car, and Sand Dune Arch, which is a short walk through a narrow slot, but well worth it for the cool air inside the rocks.

And Skyline Arch which you can also see from the car.

And finally we make it to Devils Garden.  This is also a popular place in the park, and it is also where the campground is located….but typically full this time of the year.

So we slowly head back out from Devils Garden to the park entrance.  As we come around the Tower of Babel, a car and a truck have stopped, a guy runs across the road….I sense something is wrong.

There is only one climber in sight….lower than before…but alone.

   

A park ranger drives up, siren on, gets out and scampers up the rocks at the urging of the guy just in front of him.

In the meantime, the loan climber starts to make his way down.  Soon a EMS worker, and then an Ambulance, and even a County Sheriff arrive.  I found out from one of the guys who was first to stop that a man from New Zeeland had fallen…but was responsive and appeared to have broken limbs and probably ribs.  Rock Climbers are another bred of human…..  

As for us, we enjoyed our day in the park, that’s for sure.  Tomorrow, Canyonlands, probably the Island in the Sky area.