Dead Horse on the Island in the Sky

Some 150 years ago cowboys would chase wild horses onto steep and high edges of Colorado river canyon. They managed to find a point where access to the mesa was only 30 feet wide. All they needed was to put a gate there and the perfect trap was ready. Then they could pick out the most promising horses and set the rest free. According to the legend once they left the gate closed and horses died of thirst looking down at the water of Colorado river. That’s where the name Dead Horse Point came from. The place is now a state park.

Friend of ours recommended us Dead Horse Point but it was a tough choice. First of all we had just a couple hours to see it. We spent all day on th Island in the Sky, the furthest north part of Canyonlands. So we didn’t have too much time, kids were tired and a bit cranky, we weren’t full of energy either. We were going from one Utah park to another for two weeks now and believe it or not we’re not that young anymore…

Second of all Dead Horse is a state park. And that means we have to pay for it. And it was not that cheap - entrance fee to Dead Horse Point SP is 10 USD. No matter what time you get in and whether you’re gonna stay there an hour or all day long. It’s the same price as for Canyonlands (where you pay only at the entrance to the first part you see, the rest is free unless you have America the Beatiful then everything is free). But well, we decided to go in anyway.

First there was a slight surprise. There is a beautiful, of course, road 313 leading to both parks. To Dead Horse Point you have to turn few miles before Island in the Sky. And that’s where the mistery from a day before was resolved. When we were driving back from The Needles we’ve seen flames on the mesas. We assumed it was some kind of tanks reflecting the rays of the sun setting down. Meanwhile those flames are from flare stacks, devices used for burning off flammable gas released during oil production. 

Few miles from park borders, both national and state, there are a few oil rig and they are extracting oil as fast as they can. Well, during our trip we learned it hard way: the distances are huge, gas expensive (ok, gas is cheap but a family car with a family trailer uses a lot of it), so all we keep our fingers crossed. As long as they don't try to enter the parks wich happened in the past.

Gas flames make the area which was cursed in old days (that's how you can find so many devils in local names) or revered even more beatiful. Now, after sunset, which brings out all the colors of Utah you can see here and there amazing flames burning. It is like Tierra del Fuego...

Not to make it to perfect we’ll complain a little too. We went to see Dead Horse and we got our butts kicked by the weather. Last days were hot, really hot. Now suddenly it got cold and very windy. We decided to skip hiking (8 miles of trails all together), because kids were too tired after all day and the weather was awful… Of course in the same time we passed by a large group of bikers. Wherever we go they are a sing of mountains and bad weather... Dead Horse SP is proud of its 9 miles of beautiful bike trail. Tempting… Maybe next time...

We didn’t skip the view point though, after all we paid! Despite seeing The Needles and Island in the Sky before, the place is worth 10 USD. The same Colorado river but it looks different from here. More staircase-like, much closer, cliffs and mesas look like they’re zoomed in. We were so amazed by the view that we even forgot to check where exactly was the horse trap. Besides, who knows, maybe it’s just an urban legend….

It was a real struggle with wind and cold. We had a little déjà vu from Libya, where we went to Sahara Desert once to see a sunset from the dunes, and we were waiting for it for over an hour in a cold, strong wind, and at the and it started raining. Now it was pretty much the same. We waited and we waited, together with a few Americans and over 20 Costaricans. At the end it was really cold and windy and it started raining we gave up and we went back to the car. Only two out of eight feet stayed there to take some pictures and refresh her knowledge of Spanish.

Loneliness of a traveler

Luckily the weather calmed down just a few minutes later and for the very sunset it was nice again. We even got a rainbow as a bonus.

Before that the weather was perfect. Warm but bot too hot, perfect for walking around Island in the Sky. As we wrote before, this is the most accessible and the most popular part of Canyonlands. It didn’t feel crowded though. We read somewhere that it’s a good warm-up before Grand Canyon. Luckily not crowd-wise.

As the park is well organized the main attraction is a "scenic drive" with numerous view points. It’s 34 miles of nice drive in the sky. From the route to view points on the edges of mesa there are trails. We chose the shortest and easiest ones, skipping (in this category) an ancient Indian grannary, which now looks like a couple of mud bricks plastered to a rock (with all due respect to ancient Indian achievements).

The first one we went to was a view point over Upheaval Dome. It’s a depression in a shape of a crater. It’s not clear how it was created so it would be a stretch to write about it that it is a crater. Some theories point to a meteor, other to volcanic origins, some suggested there was a huge salt deposit that collapsed. For sure it looks intriguing.

Another place we went to see was Mesa Arch. This is the most popular place on the Island. It’s the best place for taking pictures, especially at sunset. We got there quite a few hours before, but it was already full of photographers booking the best spots and blocking the views. Maciek really liked the arch and he enjoyed exploring the rocks around it. Some Asian tourists stopped us from climbing the highest ones warning politely about a snake in the bushes. We prefer to keep the distance when it comes to snakes so we followed the advice.

We also took a short walk to the Green River canyon rim, where we could all (including Kalina) sit on a flat rock on the edge of the canyon and admire the view. We didn’t go on an easy, 2-mile long Grand View trail on the edge of the rim. It’s highly recommended so we regret it but we were defeted by the most nasty of nature creations, which made Mark Twain think that God is really mean: flies.

There are little nasty flies in parks around Moab. Disgusting, aggressive, awful little insects we know from Poland. They can get anywhere, to your mouth, nose and ears, and they bite, ripping you out of any joy from wandering around amazing rock formations. On top of that they don’t care at all about different repellents we used. Probably they wouldn’t care even if it was napalm. We didn’t expect it at all that after green Capitol Reef, with no insects at all, now, on much higher and drier rocks we’ll be attacked by clouds of bloodsucking monsters. It felt almost like near our favorite Masurian lakes in Poland.

From view points on Island and Dead Horse Point you can see some roads down in the canyon. Some of them are signs of uranium boom in the past. In the 50s uranium exploration and development companies were lobbying really hard for concessions and were looking for uranium in the area and even in current park borders. Exploratoin activities were then limited and parks defended agains intrusion of miners but signs of their presence are still visible.

When it comes to park protection it is not only on a big scale but also on a very tiny one. Not only the views and whole ecosystem are protected agains bad miners but also the soil. When entering the Canyonlands park rangers hand out leaflets explaining the importance of microorganisms creating soil crust, a thin layer covering the soil which looks like a batter. Soil crust is the perfect protection against the erosion.

We were laughing at it a little, after all if it wasn’t for erosion there would be nothing to see here… And hiking around it seems that the best erosion prevention is asphalt. Anyway, soil crust when destroyed by mining heavy equipment heals for many years. Even when you step on it you can leave a trace for decades. So, if there is a patch, paved or unpaved, it’s better to stay on it.

Roads that can be seen from the rim however are not only the exploration companies traces. There is also a road for really tough travelers. There is more than 100 mile to drive down there. And it is even more tempting, because rarely you have a chance to go for a ride in places like this. Imagine driving in Grand Canyon... Still, you have to consider it well. Towing expenses from the road down there go in thousands of dollars. As much as we love our Grand Cherokee, we don’t trust him at all so we didn’t even consider.

We really enjoyed Canyonlands and Dead Horse Point. Maybe the trails we hiked weren’t really something we’d remember, but the view of the rivers and what they created over the millennia will stay with us forever.