Utah National Parks Part 2

Capitol reef is striking for its layers of rock. The continuously eroding mountains have lots of rockfalls (both ancient and recent), which we found both fascinating and a bit alarming. We hiked high to the top of one of the rock formations, named Cassidy Arch Trail because Butch Cassidy and his gang sometimes hid the gold they stole in the rocks along this trail.

Canyonlands is composed of four major parts- the Island in the Sky, the Maze, the Needles and the Rivers. Sadly we only had time for one part and are eager to return and do the rest. The Island in the sky is a protrusion of land with a narrow “neck” that looks over another plateau with deep canyons in it. From the rim of the Island in the Sky we were able to catch glimpses of the Maze, where bandits such as Butch Cassidy hung out and avoided the possys that chased them.

Arches continues to impress even though we both have visited it in the past. After hiking the challenging and strenuous Angel’s Landing in Zion, we took it easy on the hikes here.

While visiting Canyonlands and Arches we stayed in Dead Horse State Park - an absolutely wonderful park with fantastic views. We could see a potassium collecting pool which we both found very interesting. We looked forward to seeing the Milky Way since it is a dark skies park, but were thwarted with that goal because the moon was full and much too bright. We were compensated however when we had an excellent view of the total lunar eclipse.

As Clint mentioned in the last post, Goblin State Park was the setting of a scene in our favorite Star Trek movie, Galaxy Quest, and it was very fun to wander around and explore.

Leaving Utah was very hard - it’s one of my favorite places in the world to visit.