Canyonlands National Park

After our first night in Moab, we went to Dead Horse Point State Park and Canyonlands National Park. It was quite a bit hotter than it had been on the earlier parts of our trip - mainly because Moab is at a lower elevation than all of the other places that we had been. Our first stop was at Dead Horse Point State Park. The point is on a mesa-top around 1,000 feet above the surrounding land and canyons of the Colorado River. The view was fantastic. To get to the point, you have to cross a narrow neck of land no more than 30 feet wide. The story is that back in the day, cowboys would corral the horses on the point and build a short fence across the neck in order to keep the horses in. Although the horses could see the water of the Colorado River below, there was no way down to it. The horses were forgotten about and subsequently died of thirst.

After Dead Horse Point, we made the short drive to Canyonlands National Park. Our first stop was at the Grand View Point in the Island in the Sky District. We took a 2 mile hike that gave great views of both the Colorado River and the Green River. Our next stop was at Upheaval Dome which many believe to be the remnants of a meteor that struck earth. We took a fairly strenuous (and extremely hot) 2-mile hike to a couple of viewpoints of the Upheaval Dome. After this hike, both Alison and I were worn out and we decided to head back down to Moab. We finished the evening by dining at a Mexican restaurant in town.