Canyonlands National Park: Island in the Sky

To the west of and south of Moab is a vast wilderness of canyons, buttes, mesas, and desert. Much of this area is public land managed by the Bureau of Land Management. The area including the confluence of the Colorado and Green Rivers is contained in Canyonlands National Park.

Due to the nature of the terrain (sheer canyon walls are a fairly common feature), the park is of necessity divided into three sections: Island in the Sky, the Needles, and the Maze.

The Maze is extremely remote and difficult to reach (about 70 miles from the nearest highway to the ranger station, and then more miles over 4WD track). It supposedly lives up to its name: a tangle of canyons and drainages without much in the way of trails, or potable water.

The Island in the Sky is a large mesa that is joined to the rest of the world by a narrow neck, about 50 feet wide. The park literature notes that this neck is eroding, and one day the mesa will indeed become relatively inaccessible. But currently it is possible to drive around the roads on the mesa and see the sights. There are also roads (basically more 4WD tracks) that descend from the mesa onto what is called the White Rim, which is readily visible in some of these photos.

The next post will describe my adventures in the Needles section of the park.