May 11-18, 2004
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May 14 Canyonlands National Park is near Arches, and so the next morning we got up, froze all the way to the showers (which were a story in themselves, as we had been planning on camping inside Arches where there are only outhouses, and had brought no towels or shower stuff, even though we had had to cancel our Arches campground reservations when we changed our plans), and headed south about thirty miles, past Dead Horse Point State Park, to the northern section of Canyonlands.
This is what much of the landscape in the Canyonlands area looks like. We stopped just inside to park to take this picture. I think it's Red Sea Flat.
At another stop Claire stood next to an edge of a cliff. This may be Schaffer Canyon Overlook.
Many plants were in bloom in Utah, and this was, I think, a pinyon pine.
At another pullout I found a lot of yellow flowers and this neat succulent plant.
After I dragged myself away from random flowers, we stopped at the visitor's center where we found...more flowers. Like this yellow sunflower-type.
And these, which were some sort of lupin.
There was also another edge, which Claire found.
At every national park, there's some trademark regulation that insinuates itself into the psyche of the visitor. At caves, it's the stricture that one must never, ever touch the walls or the formations because your hands' oils will foul up the limestone formation process. At Yosemite and Yellowstone it's that you must leave no food out because you will attract bears. At Arches and Canyonlands, it's that you must not bust the crust. Cryptobiotic crust, formed from bacteria and lichen, takes hundreds of years to form and grow, and stepping on it smushes it.
The nubby darker lumps in the picture are cryptobiotic crust, specifically the crust that is alongside the trail that leads to Mesa Arch.
Along the trail, which was marked by rock carins, we passed some very tenacious trees like this one.
I find another flower, this one red. It looks like it may be a cardinal flower.
At the end of the (rather short) trail is Mesa Arch.
This is pretty self-explanatory.
So is this.
Looking beyond Mesa Arch, you see this landscape.
A little farther down the road we stopped at another trail that lead to this, Upheaval Dome.
Finally, at the end of the park's north road, you come to the Grand View Point Overlook where you can see the panorama the park is known for.
You can also see the Colorado River; just past this point, the Green River merges with it and it continues south.
And this is the cute don't bust the crust logo.