Utah National Parks Trip; Day #2 (Canyonlands)

Sunday May 3rd, I was up early and prepped all the food for breakfast as well as making the lunches we were taking with us into the park. It was a cool morning in Moab but we knew it would warm up quickly. Since we had such a long travel day yesterday and got to bed rather late I just let the boys sleep in as much as they wanted. 

We were ready to head out just before 8 and made it to Canyonlands National Park Island in the Sky Visitor's Center by 9. The ride there was lovely too. 

Leaving our rental

After our traditional photo at the park sign we went on to the visitor's center, walked around reading about the area, browsed the gift shop then headed across the street for what we were told were incredible views. And they were! We also spied our first of many lizards for the day and took note of the unusual plant life.

 From there we drove through the park to grand view point overlook. The drive was so pretty. 

But wow; no wonder they call this grand view point! It's hard to photograph and get the detail and depth that you can see with the naked eye. 

We decided to hike the Grand View Point Trail; an out and back that is 1.8 miles. We loaded up on sunscreen and set off. It's a fairly easy hike but even though it was cool and in the 60's it felt much hotter with the sun baking down on us. 

 

After we finished our hike we parked in the picnic area and had our lunches then drove over to the Green River Overlook. 

see the green river? (the water isn't green; that's the plants growing alongside it)

We drove over to Upheaval dome and passed some more scrub lands along the way. 

We only hiked to the first overlook since the hike starts with a large set of stairs that made us all winded. Canyonlands is considered a high elevation park (not Rocky Mountain National park high but high) and with the heat and arid climate it often left us literally breathless for a few moments when exerting ourselves-- and with one of my boys sometimes needing a rescue inhaler I wasn't pushing our luck.  

Looking back towards the parking lot and park from the top of the stairs you can see much of the park spread out around us

The photos, once again, do not do this justice. The rocks (or perhaps sand?) around the perimeter are a pretty teal color. It is believed a meteorite hit this area many millions of years ago.

We had one last stop and hike. We went to Mesa Arch and hiked the short 1/2 mile loop trail. Incredible!

We made a quick pit stop at the visitor's center to fill up our water bottles then drove out of the park and into Dead Horse Point State Park.. encountering a few herds of cows along the way.

We only drove to the furthest point in the park to see the overlook where the Colorado River curves around the canyon. Then took a tiny part of the paved rim loop trail back to our car.  

The bright blue you can see are potash evaporation ponds-- you'll have to Google that if you're interested though as it is not easy to explain. 

We then headed back to our rental, took showers, and relaxed then headed out for an early dinner around 4:30 at The Blue Pig-- a BBQ smoke house that also has lots of fun blue tones and a bluesy music vibe. The food was SO good! Our AirB&B host told us that ALL the local area restaurants are phenomenal and so far he's right. 

we got dessert to go and this triple chocolate mousse cake was delicious but it made me SO SICK and knowing dairy was most likely the culprit I avoided all dairy for the rest of the trip.

Others in this series: 

Our Trip by the Numbers 

Day 1: Travel day