Canyonlands National Park - White Rim Trail

October 13th - 17th, 2016

Canyonlands National Park!!
Kevin has been wanting to spend more time in this beautiful park, but more significantly, he has been wanting to take the Jeep on the White Rim Trail.  It is a 99 mile rugged trail that makes a giant loop around some of the most incredibly picturesque red rock formations in southern Utah.  This trail is only accessible with a permit so there are a limited number of vehicles on it and no help if you get in trouble.  Basically, know your stuff, bring spare tires or another vehicle and have fun!

We had tried in the past to get a permit to do the trail, but as the camping along the trail is limited to 20 spots, we had failed each time we tried.  Well, as luck would have it, we kept checking and checking the back country permits and one opened up!!  And guess what!?  It was for White Crack which happens to be one of the coveted, most beautiful campsites on the trail!  We had to take it!!  Ready for a road trip!!!??!!

We left on Wednesday as soon as Jadeyn was out of school and got to stay the night at Jennifer's house in Grand Junction so Jadeyn got some quality nerf gunning in with the cousins that night!  Then, off to Utah.  I look at this trip specifically as Jadeyn's launching off point for loving reading.  He has always been a good reader and really enjoyed it, but this trip we could hardly pull him away from his books.  We found ourselves a few times having to say: Jadeyn, we are in a national park...put the book down!  It was great!
 
We arrived at the Visitor's Center to get all the information that we needed for the trail and then went to the edge.  The dirt road literally drops right down into the canyon through a series of frightening switchbacks.  Its a good thing that we have off-roaded a lot before, Or I would have been very nervous on some of the turns.  Kevin and the Jeep handled it like pros.  Seeing the river way down deep in the valley that was responsible for cutting the winding slice through the land made us realize just how powerful water and time can be.  Canyonlands seems to be in two layers.  The flat landscape at the top where you would never suspect that there is a giant crack in the earth.  Then, you see the canyon itself with all the beautiful formations, and then it cuts down more cliffs to the river bed.  Wow. 

We were rewarded with some wildlife sightings.  Big Horn Sheep, Jackrabbits, lizards and lots of birds. 

All around us some of the formations had been given names.  The one above is the washer woman, but Jadeyn thought it looked more like a lady pushing a shopping cart!

October was the perfect time to come.  The dry summers end made the road nice and navigable, and no chance of rain to make it muddy,

Okay, there are cliffs and then there are these cliffs.  Pictures simply don't do justice to just how far straight down these cliffs drop!  The middle photo above is the edge of a mighty cliff, but just across the way at the top you can see our Jeep.  Its puny!  We did keep a tight hold on Jadeyn just in case there was a big gust of wind!

We found the turn for White Crack and were rewarded with such a wide expanse of red rocks and open space and not a soul in sight.  The lone camp site was about a mile off the main trail and was right at the edge of the valley.  270 degrees of canyon!  Wow!  We set up camp and walked out to the edge of the canyon.  We hopped a few gaps and made it out onto one of the mighty hoodoos just in time to watch the amazing sunset in one direction and then turn to watch the super-moon rise behind us.  Tonight was the super moon where supposedly the moon is the closest to the earth and it did not disappoint.  Wow!  Again, pictures can't do justice to the feeling of complete solitude and awe that we felt out there!

There were some pretty scary twists and cliffs that Kevin had to navigate.  The Hogsback and Devil's Backbone were particularly well named and scary.  All you could do was pray that no one was coming towards us because there were several parts where we were at such an angle that you couldn't see the trail in front of us at all. 

We found a beautiful wash / slot canyon to hike up into with little bits of shade along the way.  What a fun two day trail successfully done!

We were able to spend the next day in the rest of Canyonlands hiking and enjoying the scenery.  We saw another majorly impressive moon rise on a night hike.  The wind up top though was incredibly strong but well worth it!

We couldn't be this close to Arches National Park and not stop!  We set up camp at an RV park we have stayed at before with the RZR and headed into Arches.  Jadeyn was so excited to do the Devil's Garden Trail and see all of the Arches.  We made sure to take every offshoot of this trail and see every bit of it and Jadeyn was happy to add 7.5 miles to his hiking log.  Up top on the fins however, the wind was so intense it literally could hold you up when leaning against it!  Crazy!! We felt like we were being sandblasted at times

Our night back at camp wasn't as pleasant as we would have liked.  The wind continued in the valley floor as well and whipped our tent around all night.  We had planned on staying two nights in Arches, instead, we hiked a bit more and then headed back home.

On all our many trips along I-70 over the years, we have always wanted to stop at Hanging Lake and finally took the opportunity since we were coming home a day early.  We got out of the car and were nearly blown over in the parking lot.  The wind was so fierce and cold.  Well, we are here, might as well hike.  Its not a long trail, only about 2.5 miles round trip, but it is very steep.  Beautiful forest helped block a lot of the wind once we started hiking.  At the top, a beautiful pristine, green lake sparkled against a granite wall.  A horsetail waterfall plunged right into it!  And the moss covering the granite oozed and dripped with water.  It was beautiful!  We even go tot witness a guy propose to his girl there!  What a beautiful hike and a perfect way to end a really fun trip!