Canyonlands National Park
Canyonlands National Park

White Rim Trail and Meander Canyon Day Trip Canyonlands National Park

Hot air balloon in Canyonlands
Hot air Balloon, Canyonlands, National Park

After our visit to Arches National Park, we went across to street to visit the Island in the Sky region of Canyonlands National Park. The two parks are really just across the street from each other. Arches is formed by erosion by wind and flash floods and Canyonlands is formed by erosion by the Green and Colorado Rivers. The contrast is striking.

White rim trail
We're headed down there
Canyonlands National Park
We'll eventually get on that road

We took a 4x4 excursion followed by a raft trip down the Colorado offered by NAVTEC in Moab Utah to get an introduction to Canyonlands National Park. Canyonlands, like Arches, has a large part of the park that can not be explored by normal cars. The tours offered by the various companies in Moab provide a good introduction to these parts of both parks. We used Tag-A-Long to see part of Arches and NAVTEC for Canyonlands. The guides furnished by both companies were great.

Just as we entered Canyonlands we saw a hot air balloon flying over the park.

The road in Canyonlands was something else. As you can see from the photo, it was a long way down. Although the road was a 2 way road, it was about wide enough for 1 jeep. And there weren't many wide spots were one jeep could wait for another one to pass. We didn't have to see what happens when two jeeps meet.

Canyonlands National Park
Canyonlands National Park
Canyonlands National Park
Canyonlands National Park
Musselman Arch
Musselman Arch Canyonlands National Park

The back country trip took us past several interesting formations and wonderful scenary with plenty of stops for picture taking. One of the places we stopped was Musselman Arch. This arch was named for the late Ross Musselman, who operated a tour business out of Moab in the 1950s

After quite a bit of driving, we finally got to a place were we could see the Colorado River. Because of the rain that made Arches so wonderful, the Colorado river lived up to its name--it was a muddy red. As one saying goes the Colorado is too thick to drink and too thin to plow. This was quite a change from the clear water in the river the day before.

Muddy Colorado River
Muddy Colorado River
Muddy Colorado River
Colorado River after the rain Canyonlands National Park
Thelma and Louise Point
Thelma and Louise Point

Much of the movie Thelma and Louise was filmed in Canyonlands. The final scene where Thelma and Louise drive into the canyon was filmed here.

Our River Guide
Our River Guide

Raft Trip down Meander Canyon

Down the Colorado River
The Colorado River from our raft

After our tour through Canyonlands, the we were dropped off at the Colorado River for a raft trip down the river through Meander Canyon. This is a calm stretch of the Colorado River through part of Canyonlands. We were offered to chance to swim off of the raft, but one look at the river convinced us that this was not a good day for swimming.

We stopped for lunch at a spot on the river called the Grotto. Really a pretty spot a short walk from the river.

Red walls of Grotto
The Grotto
Petrified log
Petrified log

After lunch, we headed back up to river. We stopped to see some petrified logs. Some of them were pretty impressive. Must have been quite a forest here a long long time ago.

petroglyphs
Petroglyphs

On the drive back to Moab, we stopped to view the most impressive wall of petroglyphs I've seen. The cliff along road was covered with them for a long way. I'd never seen anything like it.