Day 34: Canyonlands

Canyonlands

After we visited the most famous national park near Moab yesterday (Arches), it was time for the „secret tip“ today. Of course, Canyonlands is pretty famous as well, but there are way less people and no requirement for an entry reservation. As we knew the overall time spent in the car won’t be too low, we didn’t plan for any larger hikes.

So we headed into the park and visited the different spots. First was Neck Spring trail head.

Another beautiful place in nature, different to the Arches yesterday, but not any less amazing.

Then we drove all the way to the south (of the northern part of the park), the Grand View Point. From there we did the roughly 3.2 km roundtrip hike to the Grand View Point overlook.

Our next stop was Whale rock, which really remembered of a whale.

Today was another day on which time was running, it was already close to noon, even though we left the campground at 08:00. So we decided to move on and quickly visit Dead Horse Point state park as well.

Dead Horse Point

We weren’t aware that state parks are not included in the annual park card we bought. So we had to pay 20$ to visit the park and enjoy the view from the overlook.

The view was nice and there are a lot of trails (for hiking and biking), so if you have time, the entry is definitely worth it.

Interesting was the legend which led to the name. Apparently the narrow ledge (only around 10 meters), which led to the point, was used to trail horses. First they were pushed into the point and then the narrow part was closed, so they couldn’t escape. Then the best horses were picked out and captured, the rest was left there to die…

Travel

We then started with the drive to Monument Valley. Did multiple stops for quick breaks. On one of the last we stopped at the Bluff Fort, which was an early settlement along the San Juan River. We got some insights how people lived here over 100 years ago.

One of the guides then recommended us to stop at the Goosenecks state park, which was only a short detour on the way to Monument Valley. We decided to go for it and it was well worth it. This time it was only 5$ for the entrance, but the park was way smaller and really only consisted of the viewpoint.

Hummingbird Campground

After the park we covered the last miles to Monument Valley, where we stay really close to the park itself. It’s another campground, called Hummingbird, which is on the land of Navajo people.

The nature is amazing here, but there are steady dogs which sometimes lead to a bit of a stressful overall experience.

Shortly before sunset we did as quick hike to a viewpoint from were we Could park into Monument Valley.

As I conclude the Blog for today, some dogs start to bark again. Hopefully this doesn’t Continue the whole night… every night another issue, let’s stay positive!

Pictures

Activities

Nothing recorded 🥲