April 30…. Moab

We made it to Moab Utah yesterday. Two of the Big Five Utah national parks are in this area…. Canyonlands and Arches National Parks.

Arches requires a timed ticket reservation to enter the park… and true to form, I neglected to make the reservations till the last minute so I was only able to get openings for 3pm each day we’re here. Meh, whatever.

Susy wasn’t feeling her best today, so I went solo to Canyonlands for the day. The park is so large, there are two distinct areas to explore, and they do not connect without going out of the park and making a LONG drive, so I went to the south entrance to see the Needles area today. Even then, Google says the visitor center is “only” 23 miles from my campground… in a straight line. But to drive there it was a 70 mile trip.

On the way to the park, I passed a cool spot called Newspaper Rock. A rock wall just covered in ancient pictographs. No one is sure what all the pictures mean, whether they are stories or lessons or just prehistoric graffiti, but there were a lot of them.

Continuing on to the park, I started to see the sights, including North and South Sixshooter Buttes.

I stopped at the visitor center and spoke with a ranger, got a map and some advice, and set off.

I walked the Slick Rock trail. 2.6 miles, but by the time I had explored all of the side trails and gone off to all of the overlooks, I covered about 4.

Off in the distance, I could see the rock formations that give this part of the park its name. The Needles were formed by a thick layer of sandstone laid down over 200 million years ago on top of a layer of salt. Over millennia, as the salt dissolved, it caused regularly spaced cross-hatched cracks in the sandstone leaving thousands of closely packed spires of rock.

On my way home, I came across a side road to something called Needles Overlook. Yea, let’s go see that. Another 40 mile side trip, but so glad I did it.

Needles Overlook is perched high on a cliff looking down on the entire southern Canyonlands district. On one side of the point, I could see the Colorado River snaking through a canyon (not as grand as Grand Canyon, but everything starts sometime), and on the other I could see a bird’s eye view of the huge network of canyons that make up the park, including all of the areas I had just explored at ground level and the Needles off in the distance. It looks a bit like I imagine Mars would look.

On the long trip back to the highway, the road crosses a lot of open range land, meaning no fences and cattle just living their best life and running wild. Cows all over the place, I was doing all I could to avoid cow pies spread across the road like land mines.

One more stop on my way home, I found Wilson Arch, a huge sandstone arch right up a hill from the highway. I had to go up there.

A lot of time in the truck today but so many things to see and this area is just HUGE. Gotta keep moving. 😄