Road Trip: Canyonland National Park

(April 28th, 2007)







Before driving out to Canyonlands, I stopped by the auto show to see what the fuss was all about. I'm not much of a car person but the vehicles on display looked sharp. The show started at 7:30am and I had a lot of fun walking around park with my breakfast (a banana and a bagful of Honey Nut Cheerios without milk).

But with breakfast finished it was time to get back to business: seeing national parks. And what is there to say about Canyonlands... well it's a national park. That's not really fair to the park, but I've been spoiled by the other 3 parks. Canyonlands is a really nice place, it looks kinda like the Grand Canyon, only smaller. It turns out that it, too, is formed by the Colorado River, that explains the similarities. But having seen the Grand Canyon, this isn't as impressive as it should be.

However, I still had a great time today. The last 4 days have been -- well, pick a word. Exhausting, busy, strenuous, demanding. I was ready for a slightly slower day. And Canyonlands provided just that. I ended up hiking more here than anywhere else (over 10 miles today), but the hikes were broken up into short 1 to 2 mile hikes. Each viewing point requires a short hike to get the best view, which was perfect for me. A little driving, a short hike, and then sit on the rocks and relax for a bit. And, as a bonus, I scored the last camping site in the park. Don't ask me why the only have 12 sites in the park, but I got here around 10:00 this morning and reserved the last one. My tent feels much more comfortable now that I've spent some quality time with my car.

Sadly, road trip #1 is winding to an end. I'm getting up before sunrise tomorrow morning (5:50am!) to catch a nice view out here and I'll probably make one more stop in Arches tomorrow morning too. After that it's 4.5 hours back to Park City where I've got my million item list just begging for my attention. I'm glad I've been able to take it slowly for a day out here, once I get back to town I'm going to be running at 110% again.