Today was the last day of our National Park touring for a while. We made the 63-mile drive to the Needles section of Canyonlands. We were going to skip it because there is only 8 miles of paved roads and many more miles of 4 wheel drive roads, but they we are here and have the time. As it turned out it was another beautiful Utah drive. The scenery was much different than what we had seen and the road to the park was worth the drive. Along the way we stopped at Newspaper Rock Archaeological Site. As we entered the Needles the scenery changed again and we drove the scenic road and did a couple of short hikes. Well it is time to head home to Ohio.

Newspaper Rock

Wooden Soe Arch

Interesting trail across this huge rock!  

Arches National Park is a beautiful park to travel in with extremely high sheer reddish walls, formations and arches. There are many trails that lead to different arches and rock formations. The park is very popular, we passed the entrance about 9:00 am on our way to Canyonlands and there was already a double line of traffic about a quarter mile long. I read that you should arrive before 8:00am. We arrived about 7:15 and no lines so we drove to the first set of arches taking some short hikes and by the time we were finished with that area the parking lot was nearly full and we were still able to get into the rest of our stops. On our way out, the traffic coming in was again backed up. This was a great day and here is a sampling of what we saw.

We left our campground and headed for Moab, Utah via route 24 back through Capital Reef and enjoyed it again. Here are a few shots of that journey to our campground in Moab.

The next day we went to Canyonlands National Park and like most other parks it had a uniqueness that was like a different world. We were at Arches many years ago and missed this park. We are glad that we returned. Today was part one of this large park, the Island in the Sky drive.

We had lunch in the park then visited the Dead Horse Point State Park which I have had on our bucket list. One interesting site was a bright blue area in the canyon, which is Solar Evaporations Ponds. A local refinery transforms this concentrated form of potassium chloride into plant fertilizer. At the end of the park drive is a nice view of the Colorado River in a gooseneck bend. To the left of the bend there is a rock formation that resembles a dead horse. Here is a link to the story.

https://www.moabadventurecenter.com/dead-horse-point-state-park

Utah HWY 24 on the way to Moab, Utah

Our campsite at Mohab

Mesa Arch

The Dead Horse image is to the left of the river

A natural rock formation