Sunday, May 25, 2014

Canyonlands National Park Tuesday, May 20th

Tuesday we woke up and got ready to head to Canyonlands. Brad made us bacon and eggs for breakfast on our campstove. We jumped in the car and headed towards the Needles area of Canyonlands. The drive to the park was about an hour and it was a gorgeous drive filled with red rocks, buttes and canyons. Along the way we saw the Newspaper rock. It was covered in ancient petroglyphs.





We could see turtles, buffalo, horses, Indians riding horses and shooting deer and elk, giant footprints that looked like Sasquatch. The petroglyphs were amazing. 

Here are some pictures of the drive to Cayonlands. 



 Here we are arriving at the park!


We made a quick stop at the visitor center to help plan our visit to the Needles area of the park. First we did the Roadside Ruin walk. It led us to a Pueblan granary used by natives. 
Walking to the granary

The granary

Eating a snack on the trail.

Next we headed out to the Elephant Hill. It's a dirt road that leads to a 10 mile round trip hike into the wilderness of the Needles. We knew that we couldn't do a 10 miler with Declan and the heat, but we wanted to check it out. We parked at the trail head and walked out on the trail. It was absolutely amazing. It was one of the most beautiful places I'd ever seen. We walked as far as we wanted, seeing only a few people. We stopped to play a bit between the rocks and take pictures. Declan had another snack. 











Running to make it in the picture







Walking back to the car. 


Next we went for a walk to Pothole Point. It was an interesting walk and looked out over a canyon. 







Then we drove to another lookout point and saw this canyon and rock structures. 





After a lovely day in the needles, we jumped in the car and headed to the Island in the Sky, which is the part of Canyonlands near Moab. It was much more crowded. It was beautiful too, but a different kind of beautiful. Island in the Sky is several overlooks into a massive canyon. 
















Sitting at the Mesa Arch 







After an amazing day in Canyonlands, we headed back to our campsite for dinner. We were exhausted from our great day around the park!




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