Canyonlands National Park

Established September 12, 1964, and enlarged in 1971 to its present size, Canyonlands is one of the youngest members of the National Park system.

The park, encompasses 337,570 acres (more than 500 square miles), with elevation ranging from 3,700 ft at the head of Lake Powell to more than 7,000 ft just above Salt Creek.

The Park is divided into four sections. Island-in-the-Sky lies north between the rivers; the Maze is to the west; and the Needles District is to the east. Horseshoe Canyon, a detached section of the park is located to the west of the Maze District.

Geology

Deep canyons of the Green and Colorado rivers have sliced through rock representing 150 million years of deposition.

The Paradox Formation, exposed in Cataract Canyon, contains salt and other minerals responsible for some of the folded and faulted rock layers in the region. Under the immense pressure of overlying rocks, the Paradox flows like plastic, forming domes where the rock layers are thinnest, causing cracks or faults as pressures rise and fall.

Each of the overlying formations has a different color and texture; they are the product of ancient deserts, rivers and seas that once covered this land.

Prehistoric and Historic Indians

The earliest Canyonlands people hunted and gathered for thousands of years in the land that would become the park, but few left marks of their passage. Not until AD 1000 did the two great prehistoric nations of Utah, the Fremont and the Anasazi, come to Canyonlands.

The Anasazi moved north into Canyonlands when the San-Juan-Mesa Verde country to the south began to get crowded. Perhaps 1,000 people lived in stone pueblos in the area. Not many canyons had enough bottom land for corn fields and for bean and squash patches to support more than a few families. The people supplemented crops with every imaginable local food - from tiny rice-grass seeds to pinonnuts, from pocket gophers and frogs to bighorn sheep. Even this central core of Anasazi activity in Canyonlands seems to have been abandoned by AD 1250.

The Fremont people migrated to Canyonlands from the north and west. They relied more on hunting than on sedentary farming, and left behind few artifacts. One aspect of their culture remains, however. Fremont pictographs and petroglyphs are truly art - huge, hollow-eyed human figures wearing great shields, headdresses and necklaces. Perhaps the best rock art in North America covers the walls of Horseshoe Canyon; "The Great Gallery" is believed by some archaeologists to be the work of a separate culture - the Barrier Canyon people - even older than the Fremont.

When the Anglo-Americans arrived, Ute and Navajo Indians were using the area as hunting ground. These people, too, allowed the obstacle of the canyons to form the frontier of their territories, a buffer between mounted Ute raider of the north and Navajo sheepherders of the south.

Historical Background

As in so many places int he West, the beaver men were the first Americans to explore this country. One trapper, Denis Julien, left his signature, accompanied by dates in 1836, on cliffs throughout the canyons of the Green and Colorado rivers. (He also carved his name along with dates in 1844 several places in Arches.) Among the several hundred Mountain Men who roamed the wilderness west of the Continental Divide in the 1820s and 1830s, Julien was a minor figure who would have been little remembered except for one thing: a habit of carving his name or initials on rocks. Very little is known about Denis Julien, however, records at the cathedral in St, Louis show that he was married to an Indians named Catherine, and that the couple had at least three children. Based on the dates form the cathedral records, it is possible to hazard a guess that he probably was born sometime between 1771 and 1775. This would have made him over 60 years old when he carved his initials along the rivers!

In 1859 Captain John Macomb tried to reach the confluence, and became the firs explorer overland into the future park. His journal keeper was impressed with the scenery, but judged the land "worthless and impractical."

Next came John Wesley Powell. Newberry's report remained unpublished when Major Powell began his historic river trip in 1869. His work on the Colorado Plateau in the next few years, filled in the last great blank on the United States map. Powell's river trips in 1869 and 1871 took him down the Green through Cataract Canyon; the canyons owe most of their place-names to the one-armed major and his men.

Large cattle herds worked down towards the rims as early as 1874, and in the next two decades then of thousands of cattle grazed The Needles District. By 1840, the Scorup and Somerville brother's Indian Creek Cattle Company was the largest cattle outfit in Utah and one of the largest in the west.

With the cattle came rustlers, and the canyons were the perfect place to fatten up stolen herds in secrecy, or to hide out after a bank robbery. Robber's Roost, just west of the park, was headquarters in the 1880s and 1890s for Butch Cassidy and his Wild Bunch, and their Outlaw Trail crossed the Green River near Fort Bottom. Few lawmen would risk following Butch and his boys into the Canyonlands. The outlaws knew the box canyons and ambush points by heart, and the lawmen were greenhorns.

In the 1950s, uranium prospectors searched the length of every outcrop in Canyonlands for hot spots; nearly all the area's jeep roads began as Prospector's tracks. Charlie Steen's incredible Mi Vida strike just east of the park touched off a boom that has never quite died.

Canyonlands was included in the vast Escalante National Park, which conservationists proposed in the 1930s. It would have preserved 7,000 square miles of southeastern Utah, including Glen Canyon, which has since been lost under Lake Powell. But this park never made it to fruitation, and only the isolation and limited resources of Canyonlands saved it from development in the following decades.

Finally, in the early 1960s, two men combined their efforts to create Canyonlands National Park. Stewart Udall, Secretary of the Interior under President John F. Kennedy, took a flight along the Colorado River to examine a proposed dam site at the confluence, looked out at the spectacular Needles District and said "my God, that's a national park down there." Bates Wilson, Arches National Monument superintendent, also realized Canyonland's potential. Wilson proceeded to feed Udall the information he needed in Washington, and between them, they propelled Canyonlands National Park into existence in 1964.

Driving Tour

Island-in-the-Sky District

The northeast sector of Canyonlands National Park is composed of 6,100 ft high Island In The Sky. It is a 12 mile long, narrow promontory between the Green and Colorado rivers; rising some 2,000 ft above them.

Shafer Canyon Overlook provides the first good views down the canyon and the incredibly twisting Shafer Trail Road. Cattlemen Frank and John Schafer (the "c" in their name was dropped by mapmakers) built the trail in the early 1900s to move stock to additional pastures. The trail was upgraded to a jeep road during the 1950s so uranium prospectors could reach their claims at the base of the cliffs. Today the Shafer Trail Road connects the mesa top with the White Rim 4WD Trail and Potash Road.

Neck Spring Trail begins from the Shafer Canyon Overlook, and follows paths which were originally established by animals using the springs. The trail follows a 5-mile loop down Taylor Canyon to Neck and Cabin springs, formerly used by ranchers. Water troughs, corrals, a water tank and the ruins of an old cabin are all that remains.

The Neck is a narrow land bridge just 40 ft wide, and is the only vehicle access to the 40 square mile Island In The Sky District. Indians may have set brush traps or fences across the Neck to capture bighorn sheep or other game driven here from the Island or mainland. Later, cowboys put a gate across the Neck to contain grazing cattle on the Island, where fences were not needed. A second gate across the Neck made a handy corral for holding livestock or horses. Grazing ended in 1974. Notice the canyons encroaching on the Neck from either side. Water and wind are breaking the sandstone down grain by grain. Given time, the Neck will erode away, cutting off access to the Island.

Lathrop Trail is the only marked hiking route going all the way from Island In The Sky to the Colorado River. Part of the trail follows an old mining road past several abandoned mines, all relics of the uranium boom. Total distance of the hike is 9 miles one-way with an elevation change of 2,100 ft.

Grays Pasture is named for Old Gray, a horse who disappeared, only to be found several days later in this area.

Mesa Arch stands on the edge of a 500 ft drop-off above Buck Canyon, which cuts down another 700 ft to the White Rim. The arch is eroded from Navajo Sandstone, and frames views of the La Sal Mountains in the distance, and rock formations, including the Washerwoman, a distinctive butte containing a small window, below. A short loop trail leads to the arch from the parking area.

Grand View Point is perhaps the most spectacular panorama from Island In The Sky. Monument Basin lies directly below, and countless canyons, the Colorado River, The Needles District, and mountain ranges are in the distance.

La Sal Mountain Range comprises 3 distinct mountain groups in an area about 15 miles long from north to south and 6 miles wide. Major peaks in the northern part are Mt. Waas (12,331 ft), Manns Peak (12,273 ft) and Mt. Tomasaki (12,230 ft). The middle group contains Mt. Mellenthin (12,646 ft), Mt. Peale (12,721 ft) and Mt. Tukuhnikivatz (12,483 ft). The Indian name for Tukuhnikivatz means "Land where the Sun Shines Longest." South Mountain (11,798 ft) dominates the southern group. Early Spanish explorers, seeing the range when it was covered with snow, named it La Sal ("Salt"). Other names include Salt Mountains and Elk Mountains. Gold fever peaked here at the turn of the century with activity concentrated in Miners and Gold basins. Old mines and ruins of former mining camps can still be found in the mountains.

The White Rim is a broad esplande above the Green and Colorado rivers. It is composed of Wingate Sandstone, a white colored sandstone, which if harder and more durable and resistant to erosion than the other types of sandstone it is "sandwiched" between. It lies about 1,000 ft below Island In The Sky.

Ages ago, the Colorado River was a wide shallow stream flowing aimlessly across the flat Colorado Plateau. At first the channel was very wide, but as the land uplifted and the stream cut deeper into the sandstone, its channel became narrower. The process of deepening and narrowing continued, and the river now runs between step-like walls, 3,000 ft below the surface of the plateau.

The Totem Pole, a spike taller than the Washington Monument, measures 305 ft, and is the tallest formation in Monument Basin.

The White Rim Road is a 100 mile dirt road which travels along the White Rim section of the Island In The Sky District.

Monument Basin, located almost directly below Grandview Point, is a sunken containment of huge towers. It is also known as Standing Rock Basin.

The Abajo Mountains, also known locally as the Blue Mountains, are a prominent feature of the landscape for many miles. These mountains, like the Las Sals are of laccolithic origin. In general, dense forests cover the northern and northwestern slopes; grasses cover the southern and eastern slopes. The highest mountain is Abajo Peak at 11,360 ft.

The Needles District is the most widely traveled part of Canyonlands National Park. It lies some 12 miles from Grandview Point.

The Confluence of the Green and Colorado rivers is located 65 miles downriver from Moab.

The Green River begins in the Wind River Range in Wyoming. It is the largest tributary - larger than the Colorado itself - to the Colorado River.

Aztec Butte is one of the few area at Island In The Sky with Indian ruins; shortage of water prevented permanent settlement. An easy trail climbs 200 ft in one-half mile to the top of the butte for a good panorama of the Island.

Whale Rock is a very good likeness to its namesake. An easy trail climbs this Navajo Sandstone hump. Distance is one-half mile roundtrip with an ascent of 100 ft.

Upheaval Dome is one of the closest thing to a moonscape on earth. For many years, Upheaval Dome has kept geologists busy trying to figure out its origin. They once assumed that salt of the Paradox Formation pushed rock layers upward to form the dome. Under pressure from the thousands of feet of rock that had formed above it, salt, the consistency of toothpaste, oozed up through a weakened area of the earth's crust, pushing up 10 layers of rock above it to form a dome 3 miles wide and 1,200 ft deep. Six of the rock layers were so distorted by the movement that they were turned almost on edge. Eventually the surrounding area sank to form a trench or syncline around it.

Over the next 40 million years erosion stripped away the overlying crust to expose the upturned and fractured faces of the doomed rocks to farther erosion. Near the center of the dome the stack of upturned and broken rock eroded more easily, washing away into the canyon that extends from the fractured west wall of the crater. This created an inner void, an erosional basin 1,500 ft deep and a mile wide, circle by cliffs of the harder, more erosion-resistant Wingate Sandstone.

However, there is strong evidence that a meteorite impact caused the formation. The surrounding ring depression (caused by collapse) and the convergence of rock layers upwards towards the center correspond precisely to known impact structures. Shatter cones and microscopic analysis also confirm an impact origin. When the meteorite struck, sometime in the last 150 million years, it formed a crater up to 5 miles wide. Erosion removed some of the overlying rock, perhaps as much as a vertical mile. The underlying salt may have played a role in uplifting the central section.

Today, ringed by a floor of colorful Moenkopi formation rocks, you will see the weird central core of Upheaval Dome with its multicolored, 500 foot high, eroded spires extending from the White Rim, one thousand feet below. Many of these gray-green rock forms are Organ Rock Shale.

Needles District

Maze District

Accessible only by air or with a four-wheel drive vehicle, the Maze District is one one of the last truly unexplored regions in the United States.

Horsehoe Canyon District