Channeling Our Inner Superhero

Canyonlands National Park is divided into three districts – the Needles, Island in the Sky, and the Maze – all separated by the Colorado and Green Rivers. Since there aren’t any river crossings, there is no direct access from one section to the other. The Maze section is the most remote and accessible only by high clearance 4-wheel drive. Both the Needles and Island in the Sky have small campgrounds, a visitor’s center, and some paved roads. You can see Island in the Sky from Needles and vise versa, but to get from one to the other is a little over a 100 mile drive.  We pulled into the Needles section of the park early Tuesday afternoon, 4/11, only to find the campground completely full. Ok, plan B.

Just outside the park is BLM land with campsites. We unhook and do a little scouting. The first BLM campground we check out is also full, but there is dispersed camping and we score a nice spot less than 5 miles from the park entrance. This’ll do just fine.

Fantastic views and it's free!

We get set up and head back to the park to check out the visitor’s center exhibits and do a short hike on the Slickrock Trail. Geology lesson for the day: slickrock isn’t. (At least when it's bare and dry.) Slickrock is actually sandstone and the rough, textured surface provides amazing traction. This is extremely important, since for the next three days we hiked up (and down!) slickrock formations so steep I felt like I could have been the stunt double for The Amazing Spiderman. Lol.

Slickrock isn't. 

The cactus are starting to bloom!

Love how the rock is frozen in waves and swirly patterns.

Some joker put a trailmarker way out there on the precipice.  I'll pass. :)

On Wednesday, we did the 11-mile roundtrip trail to Druid Arch. The trail description said the last .25 mile to the arch is steep with one ladder and some scrambling. There had to be a ladder. But, after the Balcony House tour, this one turned out to be a piece of cake. There were several vertical climbs where I actually wished there was a ladder!  Never thought you’d hear that, eh? Lol.  The hike afforded fantastic views of the Needles and the payoff at the end was worth it though, a huge double arch and panoramic views of the canyon.

Rog does his pano magic. Druid Arch is on the right.

Ha! Piece of cake. Lol. 

Where's the ladder when you need it?  :) 

Rog side-stepping down a big pour over.

The landscape here borders on the other-worldly. The fantastic shapes and colors just make your eyes pop. We had fun naming the formations. We found Howard the Duck, Turtle Rock, The Yellow Submarine, Chicken Rock, Anteater Arch, Marge Simpson, Mushrooms, Cow Plop Rocks, Muffin Tops and Cupcakes too! Lol.

What an incredible landscape. What planet are we on?

Could this be anything but Chicken Rock? Lol.

More awesome formations.

We decided to do a shorter hike on Thursday, and opted for the 7.5-mile Big Spring Canyon to Squaw Canyon loop.  This is another hike where the description warns of “steep grades that are dangerous when wet and may make people with a fear of heights uncomfortable”. My Spidey senses were tingling. It turned out the crazy scramble over the slickrock was our favorite part of the hike!

It only looks like the trail deadends here - you go UP! :)

And up some more ...

... and over too!

Double Trouble! Lol.

Because many of these trails traverse large areas of bare rock, they use small stone cairns to mark the way. We played a lot of “find the cairn,” sometimes we’d see them far below (or above) us and wonder how in the heck we’d ever get there. We always did, although some of the paths were, ahem, interesting. 😊

Can you play "Find the Cairn"?
Those tiny dots far below are trail markers, it's getting there that's the trick. Lol. 

The last part of the hike was along a small creek. A change of pace from the slickrock landscape.

On all of our hikes we’ve found the lizards highly entertaining. There are several varieties and they are everywhere. They seem to favor the cairn tops and play King of the Hill, lifting their tails and doing little lizard push-ups to convince us that they are not to be trifled with and then run like the dickens if we get too close. We had only one snakey encounter. Rog (who is above me on the trail) looks down into the vegetation – which is now exactly at eye-level to me – and says, “Do you see the snake?”  Arrrrrrrgh! What snake?! I say, dancing backwards down the trail. Luckily, this time it was just a harmless garter snake.

We absolutely loved the lizards.

Yesssss, nice to meet you too.

We talked to several folks who recommended the Chesler Park/Joint Trail loop. It was another 11-miler, so my brain had to convince my feet this was doable. So glad we did it! The Chesler Park portion had fantastic views of the Needles and the Joint Trail wound through deep, narrow fractures in the rock.  We went through a cavern area filled with hundreds of cairns and then we lost the trail. Lol. After some searching we figured it out and were treated to probably my favorite part of all the hikes – a giant stone maze with narrow passages cleft in rocks the size of a city block. I’d love to do the Joint Trail again and explore more of the fissures and caverns that run perpendicular to the main trail. It was just so cool! Absolutely not to be missed!

Love the colors and light - Rog took this one too.

The trail winds through all kinds of formations.

The Needles. 

The Cairn Cavern. Which way do I go???

Deep tunnels to explore ...

... and narrow crevices.

The walls were so sheer and tall.

Feeling claustrophobic yet? Lol. 

Loved this part of the hike!

And then to get out we had ... only half a ladder. Oh joy!

The La Sal Mountains behind the Needles.  Makes every step worthwhile.

Our original plan was to leave Saturday morning and look for a spot at Horsethief campground on BLM land just outside the Island in the Sky section of Canyonlands. But after watching the spaces around us fill up on Friday (this is Easter weekend), we decided to hang tight for another day. Our thinking was that more people will be leaving Sunday and our odds of finding a spot should be better. We’ll see how that pans out. Besides that, after three straight days of hiking, my little tootsies could use a break. A camp day it is! 😊 

We had a relaxing Saturday, mostly just reading and hanging out. Rog baked cookies, yummy Snickerdoodles for dessert tonight. Yeah! Even more cars pulled into our little slice of BLM heaven. Our first night here there were just three of us, now there are ten vehicles crowded into the same space. Unfortunately, that included two groups of testosterone fueled idiots who got into a shouting match after dark. The larger of the two groups was exceptionally loud and obnoxious. I was glad we could shut the windows and insulate ourselves from the worst of it. I felt sorry for the other tent campers.

Beautiful sunset, before the neighborhood went to hell. Lol. 

The next morning as we were getting ready to pull out, Rog walked over to share some cookies with Trish and Walt, a couple from Colorado that were camped here the whole time we were. Really nice folks with similar interests. While we were chatting the two tent camping groups went at it again, only this time it escalated to fisticuffs. Really? Supposed adults operating at about 7^th grade maturity levels. The four of us walked over to intervene, since it was looking like about 5 on 1. After much shouting and posturing the two groups finally separated and packed up to leave. We hung out until the smaller group pulled out. Enough excitement for today, thank you very much.