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We drove into Canyonlands in the early afternoon, expecting a nice evening of hiking and camping before continuing on. But that was enough time for us to fall in love with the place, and we ended up spending three days of hiking and playing in the desert environment. Canyonlands is a huge area, we spent all our time in the southernmost entry point, the Needles District, which was nice as it gets you down into the canyon floor. Our third day in the area was my 32'nd birthday, much of which was spent lost in the desert -- a highly recommended experience if you get the chance and manage to survive. Late afternoon found us in Moab, Utah, having dinner at the local microbrewery, staying at a hotel and greatly enjoying a long-needed shower.
Our first explorations of Canyonland National Park, everywhere you look there are cool looking rocks and trees.
Amie enjoying the view after a short hike from the road. It's so quiet in the canyons, not even the sound of jets flying over. And life is sparse, just the occasional bird or coyote or rabbit or lizard.
Amie was compelled to try and give mother nature a break, lightening her load for a few minutes. Not an easy job, when you look at all the precarious rocks throughout the canyonlands.
Walking across the slickrock, enthralled by the desert within Canyonlands.
Our first evening we took a pleasant hike down into a narrow canyon at the end of the road and watched the setting sun. Only the tops of the rock are still getting sun.
Our first sunset in Canyonlands.
We had a great campsite in Canyonlands -- it's an amazing camground -- with a view in the distance of the Needles (not visible in this photo). We sat up late into the night on the slab of rock you see in the photo, laying back and looking at the stars and satelites. Later in the night we were awoken from a sound sleep in the tent by the yips and barks of a pack of coyotes passing through our campsite evidently trying to scare up some rabbit supper.
Potholes in the slickrock seem to contain nothing more than crumbly dirt, but in fact they team with life. When the infrequent rains fall (9 inches per year), long dormant eggs hatch in even the smallest potholes, everything from beetles to shrimp to tadpoles, and some life forms with cells that were almost completely dried out rehydrate themselves and come back to life. In the few days that water stays in the potholes, whole lives are lived from birth to death, with new eggs left for the next rain, and other life forms visit to drink their fill.
The Anasazi who lived in Canyonlands over 700 years ago were a small people, which Amie confirms by matching her hand size with theirs. She was of course careful to not actually touch the ancient cave drawings. These old drawnings were found within a low outcropping of rock near a tiny fresh water spring.
Our third and final day in Canyonlands we took a backcountry hike. The trail started by leading us up over some pretty red rocks.
Hiking down off the red rocks towards the canyon floor below. That little tree was pretty amazing, growing up out of the rock in what felt like a furnace.
You might think we're smiling because it's so pretty here on this trail, but in fact we're smiling because we're in the shade. I suspect it was about 19 bazillion degrees, give or take a few. We each drank nearly a gallon of water during our five hour hike, and didn't pee once.
Our view from the shade, looking out at the Needles.
The sign nor our book was especially clear. Amie was convinced we should have taken a sharp left at this point. I suspected she didn't know what she was talking about.
I was convinced that instead we should continue on straight into the heart of the desert. It was my birthday and I was bigger, so I won. Unfortunately, as it turns out.
I have no idea where we are. We appear to be on a trail, but it doesn't match any of the trails in our trailguide. And it's really hot. So we managed to get lost in the desert. Wherever we ended up, it was well worth it, as it was beautiful. When we got to our pre-determined time limit, we turned around and followed our footsteps back out the way we came. Going in we didn't realize we were going uphill, but going back it was downhill and no longer facing the sun so we made very quick progress.
