Canyonlands National Park, Utah

Canyonlands is 30 miles from Arches, so not knowing what to expect and flushed with the excitement of smashing 12 named arches before lunch, we decided to just do a drive by, pick up our National Parks pamphlet and cruise out of there.  Much to our surprise we were given much more than just the national parks pamphlet (which is not to disparage the pamphlet, any parker’s most prized souvenir).  As far as the eye can see this park is canyons - big ones, small ones, inner rims, outer rims, white, yellow, red and green.

Buck Canyon with White Rim above

Established in 1964, Canyonlands is largely unexplored and is one of the wildest parks in the national parks system.  It is big – 527 square miles – and can be split into four regions: (a) Island in the Sky, which is a long mesa extending into the canyon and wedged between the Colorado and Green rivers; (b) White Rim, which is a long white sandstone bench that separates the inner and outer canyons of the Colorado and Green rivers; (c) the Maze, which is a collection of bewildering and bedazzling sandstone buttes, fins, arches, towers and mesas squeezed into a 30 square-mile wilderness area that also contains some of the country’s most extensive and best-preserved rock art; and (d) the Needles, which is another collection of sandstone sculptures but featuring mostly towers and arches. 

In late April 2003 a man called Aron Ralston famously broke and then amputated his right arm at the end of a five-day ordeal that began when a boulder he was climbing over rolled onto the arm.  This occurred just outside Canyonlands National Park, and it is a testament to how remote the region is that he spent five days down there with little hope of rescue.  For more see Denton’s interview with him: http://www.abc.net.au/tv/enoughrope/transcripts/s1227885.htm       

  

Our drive-by was along one of only two paved roads in the park, which runs along the top of Island in the Sky.  The unfathomably dramatic scenery below the horizon was matched in the sky by vast storm fronts marching one behind the other into the distance.  Between squalls we were treated to rainbows that formed bridges from the Island in the Sky mesa all the way into the confusion of canyons below us.  We jogged a few side-trails to Mesa Arch and the Buck Canyon overlook.  Then the main front hit us and the canyons were completely obscured by driving snow.  A landscape dominated by violent, bruising, masculine, reds, purples and browns was entirely transformed in minutes as the delicate mauve, tan and yellows of the grasses and shrubs was revealed against the frank, white canvas of fresh snow.   Improbably, better was yet to come. 

As we minced down the whitened road the sun crept under the low clouds and commenced the most spectacular sunset of our trip thus far.  First it lit the face of west-facing cliffs on the other side of the canyon, drawing them nearer.  Then it infused the lingering low clouds with spooky yellow light, so that they appeared like heavenly curtains, trailing wistfully over the canyon walls.  Finally it faded from the low clouds and lit only the harder upper clouds, which reflected its warm orange light onto the whitened landscape all around us.  We got back into the car, freezing but tingling with the thrill and quietly set off for Capitol Reef National Park – still some 236 miles away. 

Before the snow caught up to us on the I-70, our way was lit by a full moon.  It was so bright that we didn’t need headlights (don’t worry, because it’s the law we had them on).  We didn’t make Capitol Reef National Park as the snow came on thick and scared us off.  Our preferred route hadn’t been ploughed or driven and new snow was up to a few inches on the road.  We chose instead to stick to the interstate, which had at least been salted.  While we crawled along at about 25 to 30 mph, the other drivers didn't seem too bothered, and the big trucks still drove recklessly down the highway at crazy speeds like they always seem to do.  Our poor beast was continually smothered with the salty slurry but struggled on gamely to a small town called Gunnison. 

At Gunnison we struck gold with what would turn out to be the best deal B&B we'd had on the trip (if you give lots of weight to price, if not, it would be Garden Wall Inn at Whitefish, MN).  We had a cute little room that was fortunately designed in autumn colours to which we added much red sand from Arches National Park.  In the morning we dug into a huge home-cooked breakfast and things looked sunnier already, although we knew that two more snowstorms would be coming through Utah over the next 36 hours, the last one to bring up to two feet of snow and blizzard conditions.