Onwards. Hmmm, these pictures are starting to get out of control. I think I've uploaded the same one at least twice, and I'm losing track of some of the ones I wanted to post... there was one more Swell picture, but I figured enough with the damn Swell, let's move on. So we did: now it is time to mention

Side trip #2: Southeastern Utah

in which we visit 2 more national parks, and one state park.

We drove down towards Moab, with the weather again looking dubious, as you'll see in the images. We never got rained on, but there were lots of little showers here and there around the horizon. August is monsoon time, when the relatively moist air masses push up from the Gulf of California across Arizona and into Utah (though frankly compared to the real thing, the southwest's 'monsoon' hardly seems worth the name). We decided again to try the Park - overnight stay - Park routine, with Canyonlands first, then Arches on the second day.

Adjacent to Canyonlands is Dead Horse Point State Park. The point is a small peninsula of high tableland jutting out over the canyon of the Colorado River, connected to the rest of the high tableland by only about a 50-foot wide neck of land. The dropoffs are sheer and long on all sides. (Very nice satellite image from Google Maps here.) The name commemorates an extreme bit of animal abuse during the period of early pioneer settlement, when some settlers apparently corralled a group of horses out on the point, culled out the horses they wanted, and left the remainder to die of thirst. (Or so the material at the park said. Apparently the story is somewhat fuzzy.)

The view is spectacular, and was the site of my second attempt to take a panoramic set of images with the camera. I think I've figured out the basic idea of the photo merging software, though the results aren't as good as I'd hoped – it's sort of an impressionistic fantasia, with buttes dissolving into thin air – but it does get the feel of the place across pretty well. (At this scale, the image isn't very impressive. I'd really encourage checking out the larger version.)

The Colorado River flows in from the left, swings around the gooseneck, and heads off towards the distance in the left-center of the image, where it meets up with the Green River at the head of Cataract Canyon. The rise from the river to where we're standing is just about 2000 feet. The high plateau on the right is Island in the Sky, part of Canyonlands and where we're headed next.

[All trip entries]

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Posted by David Fleck at 26 September 2006 10:07 PM