Back on the road and this time I’m all on my own. It’s an odd feeling honestly. You spend every day with someone and just like that you’re doing your own thing again.
I left on Tuesday afternoon and drove west to the Island of the Sky district in Canyonlands National Park. Ifound some BLM land just outside the entrance and I camped there. Really convenient location but not much in terms of things to look at. Making dinner and cleaning everything is a bit more difficult when you have no one to help you out. The new reality.
I was sitting outside reading a book after cleaning up, enjoying the desert sunset and all that, and this man from a campsite down the road walked up. He was looking for a cell phone signal but he stopped to chat with me for a bit.
He and his family are from Switzerland and they have been traveling in the US and Canada for close to a year now. They shipped their campervan from Europe to Canada and I had plenty of questions about that. He told me a ton of Europeans have done it since the start of the pandemic. And it was not very expensive either.
They have two children and they are slowly moving south with the intention of going to Mexico. Mostly on dirt roads – staying away from the major highways. I asked him about traveling with young children (his were 2 and 3 years old). I’ve seen plenty of people do this but I’m not sure how they manage.
He said it was challenging but that’s the life they have chosen and it is working out for them. It was nice to meet someone new and have a chat with a stranger. Especially my first night on my own.
I got into the park fairly early but I son learned that it wasn’t entirely necessary. There are tons of overlooks in this part of the park. But all of the trails are super short here.
So that’s what I did. I took the short walk to an overlook, took a break, and then drove on to the next one. Rinse and repeat. You probably only need 4 or 5 hours to make it to everything worth seeing in this area of the park.
It did get a bit boring by the mid-afternoon, I’m not going to lie. I think it’s a combination of being alone for the first time and not having a challenging hike to do in this area. By the third overlook, you really lose that “wow” factor.
Anyway, I went to Mesa Arch first and did the short walk up the hill to the lookout. It’s the most famous feature in the park and a good place to be for sunrise. The arch stands right on the cliff and you can look through it like a window and see the views of the canyon below.
They had a ton of infographics identifying the plant life on the trail and that’s something I’d like to get better at. Being able to identify plant life while walking around. I’ve been traveling for about 5 months now and I don’t even know what types of trees I’m looking at sometimes! I think that’s silly.
The second stop was Upheaval Dome, which actually is a trail to two separate viewpoints overlooking a crater. Geologists still can’t say for certain how the crater came to be. They believe it was created by either a salt dome that collapsed on itself or a meteor strike. They lean meteor strike and I do too. Not that I know what I am talking about. It just seems cooler.
I was thinking of taking the trail around the crater. It gets you to a point where you can hike into it. But it was an 8 mile trail and fairly hot by the time I arrived. I figured I would save my energy for some other hikes later in the week.
From there it was just about hitting all the viewpoints in the southern portion of the part. Green River and White Rim were my favorites. Green River had the best view of them all. And the White Rim trail was super unique.
The rock layer on the rim of the canyon below the vantage point looks almost like it is made of salt. The rock is a different type of sandstone and it makes up one of the many layers of the canyon. It just hasn’t eroded yet and it coats the rim of the lower canyon.
The Grand View Point trail is the most popular and it is about two miles out and back. Just a stroll along the rim. The views to the east were great in the late afternoon light. But the visibility west wasn’t so good because the sun was in my eyes. Definitely, a hike to do in the morning if you want good views in that direction.