Canyonlands

We had a great "quick tour" of Arches yesterday afternoon with the family, but to really feel like you've been to the park, some serious hiking needs to be involved. We went back to the visitor center at Arches and by the time we had talked to two volunteers we had determined the best bang for our buck (and for photo opps) was going to be the hike to Delicate Arch at sunset. So off to Canyonlands we went LOL! Our cabin was about 500 feet from the turnoff to Canyonlands and the turnoff was less than 7 miles from the entrance to Arches, so this wasn't a totally willy nilly decision or waste of gas. 

After the turnoff to Canyonlands, it must've been at least a 15-mile drive before we got to the "entrance." It was further than we thought but still quite remarkable how close these two parks are to each other when you consider how different they are from each other. The volunteer at Arches described Canyonlands as "another Grand Canyon." Essentially, that's it: A deep and wide and beautiful canyon carved out by a river with some interesting formations and sites along the way but without the crowds.

Canyonlands is mostly driving around and stopping at look outs. We did see an interesting road/bike path that actually went down into the canyon. Rodney is going to come back with his mountain bike and a mountain biking buddy (that would NOT be me) but for now, it's mostly just a drive-by park. On the car ride yesterday we listened to a portion of the book Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey (except we can never remember his name, so we just refer to him as "our author"). Rodney's biking buddy had mentioned it to him and we both bought a digital version of the book and had started reading it before the trip, but neither of us had finished the book. Rodney had also purchase the audio version of the book, so we listened to it in the car yesterday on the drive to Arches. (It was kind of fun that we had both gotten to the exact same place in our reading prior to yesterday so we just started the audio book on the next chapter.) In the book, written 50 years ago, he complains about "Industrial Tourism" and predicts what the future of National Parks will look like if it continues. This was the perfect example of it.