We just never knew what we were going to see when we came to an overlook in this park, usually it was a surprise. That can be said for Grand View Point, which has tall spires standing starkly in deep canyons.
As a sign near this overlook notes: : " the relentless forces of water and gravity have sculpted the vast canyons.."mere drops of water chisel dramatic cliffs, spires, mesas and buttes". Using my camera I zoomed down into the canyon to get a better view of one of the formations.
Hard to imagine, this park has thousands of such formations here in Utah's high desert country. All total the Canyonlands has 337, 598 acres of colorful canyons, mesas, buttes, fins spires and arches. Which brings us to one of the park's more popular tourist sites, Mesa Arch.
It was a short hike to this area, the path was quite sandy with short sections of slickrock. It was not possible to traverse it very rapidly! When we got there many family groups were lined up to have their photographs taken under the arch. Off in the distance is framed the La Sal Mountains as well as three formations pictured below. While we were there a few sprinkles of rain came down. We saw a movie in the visitor's center later which noted that an average of 9 inches of rain comes down in this area yearly, on average.
Washer Woman Arch stands in the left foreground, Monster Tower is the large pinnacle to its right, and
Airport Tower is the isolated butte behind them. One last picture here, that of John looking over a canyon. It was amazing to me how many overlooks are unprotected with guard rails, one certainly has to watch
their step when moving close to the edge in this park!
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