Moab was a great spot - we were able to visit two national parks and one well-known state park from here.
Canyonlands NP is more or less across the highway (plus some driving) from Arches. But it's very different. The park covers the area where the Green River joins the Colorado from the north. There are three very different sections of the park - the high plateau (Island in the Sky) between the two rivers where you can look into the canyons carved by both rivers, a section called Needles (with hoodoos similar to Bryce Canyon), and a difficult to reach section called The Maze (mostly used by off-road vehicles). We limited our time to Island in the Sky.
These pictures show the canyons made by the Green river.
We hiked to the top of Whale Rock. This is from the peak.
We also visited a area called Upheaval Dome. This is an interesting circular formation and it seems geologists are split on the reasons behind it. One school holds that there was a salt formation over a fault line and somehow a bubble rose up from underground. The other school believes that what we see today is the result of a meteor hit millions of years ago, but unlike Meteor Crater where we more or less see the surface of where the meteor hit, here we are seeing 1,000 feet below the surface and all that surface rock has eroded away. According to this explanation, the meteor was much larger than the one at Meteor Crater.
Canyonlands also has some arches. This was just a short hike off the road. It overlooks the canyons made by the Colorado river.
These are some additional views of the Colorado river side of the park. The river is about 2,000 feet below the canyon rim. This area was explored by John Wesley Powell, a one-armed Civil War veteran who was an official geologist for the US government. He was the first to go on the Colorado river all the way through the Grand Canyon. Lake Powell is named after him. He found lots of rapids just after the Green river joins the Colorado.
In the above picture, you can see the La Sal mountains. These also show up when looking through Delicate Arch (see previous post).
In the above picture you can see a vehicle heading down into the canyon. There are only dirt roads and they are used by motorcycles and off-road vehicles.
Very close to Canyonlands NP is a state park we had been advised to visit. This is Dead Horse Point State Park. It has great views of the Colorado river.
Matthew was able to get a Junior Ranger badge from Arches, Canyonlands, and Dead Horse Point. The parks also have combined to provide a "super" Junior Ranger, which they call a Red Rock Ranger program. This required Matthew to complete some additional requirements but then he was able to get another patch to add to his collection. We got this by going back to the visitor station at Arches. Here is Matthew will his full assortment of Jr. Ranger badges and pins, about 40. We are really proud of him for his work in getting all these.
Moab
We really enjoyed our time in Moab. We came here right after Bryce Canyon and things were like night and day. At Bryce, things were "off season" and some facilities were closed and the shuttle bus was not running. But when we arrived at Moab we were overwhelmed by the number of people there and the number of Jeep Wranglers. The folks at the RV park explained that for Moab, it was the peak of their tourist season. Lots of people go there for outdoor activities - hiking, off-road biking, motorcycling, ATVing, and Jeeping, as well as white-water rafting. Later in the year it gets too hot (except a lot of Europeans come in August). In addition to that, the weekend we were there Moab was hosing an old car show. During the day the cars were displayed in the park but Friday and Saturday evening the cars cruised up and down main street. It was quite a sight, and many of the locals crowded on the street side to see the show.
The Jeep people and motorcyclists also got in the action.
Did I mention that our RV park was right next to the street? In fact, the the previous picture there is a Texaco star in the background. Our RV was parked behind that sign! The cars were so noisy all evening! Fortunately they closed it down by about 10:30 so we could get some sleep.
Ah, the joys of living on the road! Always something new around the next corner.
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