Canyonlands: Purple canyons and cliff-clinging Shafer Trail

Terracotta soil and stone stubbled with green. Terraced buttes of mauve and lavender. Blue mountains with snowy, sawtoothed peaks. A immense entity and stomach-dropping abyss. Canyonlands National Park successful southeastern Utah offers awe-inspiring occidental vistas, beauty, and escapade and was my favourite among the Utah parks we visited connected our outpouring RV trip.

Island successful the Sky

We took 2 days to spot Canyonlands. On the archetypal day, pictured successful this post, we explored the park’s Island successful the Sky district, stopping astatine overlooks and making a thrilling plunge into a canyon via Shafer Trail drive.

The views are epic astatine Canyonlands.

And a small terrifying. From the visitant halfway overlook, we gazed crossed the gulf to a reddish ungraded roadworthy clinging to a skinny ledge 1,500 feet high. No guardrails. Was this a hiking trail? No, it’s a road. For vehicles. For radical to thrust existent vehicles on. My hubby turned to maine and said, “Let’s bash it.”

“No way,” I replied. “Nope. Uh-uh.” I repeated that nope all greeting and done our picnic luncheon earlier relenting because…we were there. And the roadworthy was there. And each time bash thing that scares you, right?

But archetypal we spent the greeting driving the main road, stopping astatine overlooks, and hiking abbreviated trails to respect the unthinkable scenery.

Seeing those snowy peaks successful the distance, floating supra the high-desert landscape, enhances your consciousness of Canyonlands’ immense scale.

Water created this unsocial godforsaken landscape, ironically. Two rivers, the Colorado and the Green, are inactive carving profoundly into canyons. In addition, summertime rainstorms make erosive, impermanent streams that people implicit mesas and buttes, sculpting brushed sandstone into terraces, towers…

…potholes…

…and eventually, implicit millennia, this.

In aboriginal May, purple wildflowers were successful bloom, color-coordinating with lavender canyons successful the distance. I deliberation this is milkvetch.

More canyon views

It’s hard to convey the standard of specified vistas.

Even successful a desert, a fewer trees negociate to cling to rock, weathered into bent and picturesque form.

The twisted trunks of aged breached trees are piled, astatine 1 overlook, into a boundary-defining fence.

Canyons wrong canyons

Hikers connected a cliff-edge trail

Shafer Trail

By midafternoon we’d looped backmost to the visitant halfway and the entree constituent for Shafer Trail, the ungraded roadworthy that clings to canyon walls arsenic it snakes its mode down 1,500 feet of guardrail-less exposure.

We were driving a large Ford F-150 pickup with 4-wheel drive, but we did spot 1 oregon 2 “regular” cars connected the constrictive drive. And 1 bicyclist puffing his mode up.

“The Shafer Trail…is an iconic roadworthy that descends 1,500 feet (457 m) done a colorful, monolithic sandstone cliff. Its relation has changed done the years; from a way made by Native Americans to entree resources connected the mesa top, to a way for sheep herders moving flocks to amended foraging successful wintertime time, and past a roadworthy for trucks moving loads of uranium from the backcountry to market. Today, the Shafer Trail is simply a challenging, unpaved backcountry roadworthy for recreational users seeking the acquisition of a lifetime.”

https://www.nps.gov/places/shafer-trail-viewpoint.htm

As we eased our mode done the archetypal respective switchbacks connected the descent, I sat tensely, taking fewer photos arsenic I stole glances implicit the abyss a mates feet from the rider window.

Canyon and stream acold below

But erstwhile we reached the interior canyon, I nary longer felt we mightiness autumn disconnected a crumbling cliff and could relax.

Fremont mahonia successful buttery bloom

We saw a motion for Musselman Arch and walked retired to spot it. No, this is not the bottommost of the canyon but a plateau.

Musselman Arch is technically not an arch but a earthy span of stone. A skinny 6-foot width implicit a driblet of 300 feet hasn’t stopped radical from walking crossed this eroded slab. Some person adjacent bicycled crossed it, I read. We simply marveled astatine it from a distance.

Toadstool-shaped pillars basal watch.

We didn’t spell each the mode to the canyon level due to the fact that the day was increasing late.

On the thrust backmost up to the rim, I felt comfy with the roadworthy and took tons of photos and video.

The scenery was close retired of a Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner cartoon.

This shows however constrictive the roadworthy is, and yes, it’s two-way. When different conveyance appears, you indispensable compression to 1 broadside truthful you tin pass.

Crumbled stone and still-standing hoodoos

A person view

Here are 3 videos I took connected the thrust backmost up. Enjoy!

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Near the top, present comes different car.

What a drive! I’m gladsome I said yes. It remains 1 of the astir memorable parts of our trip.

Canyonlands would beckon again different day, erstwhile we’d sojourn the Needles district, a 100-mile thrust from Island successful the Sky.

Up next: Hiking and off-roading successful the Needles astatine Canyonlands. For a look backmost astatine Capitol Reef National Park’s petroglyphs, orchards, and pie, click here.

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