Larger Than Life

Scott and I didn’t really know what to expect at Canyonlands.  It is a huge park, I mean HUGE.  The park is as natural and undeveloped as they come.  It’s a big draw for mountain bikers and off roaders.  The park is divided into three main parts… which you can’t reach from each other.  One of those parts is only accessible with off roading vehicles.  The other two have limited paved road access but provide no food, water or electricity.  We visited the Island in the Sky portion… the most easily accessible of the three regions.  We were not disappointed.

Canyonlands took my breath away.

We felt so small as we sat and gazed out at the canyons.

 

The Island in the Sky district is a mesa standing over 1400 feet above the “floor” below.  From this height you would actually be looking down on the top floor of the Sears Tower.  That “floor” isn’t really even the floor and is actually the starting point for an intricate system of high canyons below it.  Even now it’s hard for me to get my mind around the vastness of it all.

We found a fantastic picnic spot… in the middle of nowhere where we enjoyed our dinner before taking a hike across the mesa…. the kids had a blast climbing rocks, smelling flowers, carrying rocks, and just generally jumping around.

We enjoyed another sunset at this park.  The kids had a great time carving some sandstone rocks while Scott took pictures of the sun setting in the sky.

We experienced a first at this park.  We had our tent set up while the sun was still out!  There are only 12 campsites in this park and they are first come first serve.  We were blessed to get the last site.  So we set it up before we went exploring in the park.  This meant when we went back to our site after the sunset, we almost didn’t know what to do with ourselves.  The kids really got a kick out of chiseling away at sandstone and were having tons of fun with their rock “factory”.  Scott and I sat and watched the moon.

The air is so clear here with no humidity, it was amazing how clearly you could see it.  It was a fabulous site, though, I will confess that since were quite literally in the middle of nowhere I wish there hadn’t been a full moon.  The star gazing would have been off the hook!

The next morning we took our time breaking down camp.  We drove to some more overlooks and took a few short walks…. trying our best to take it all in.

In addition to the vast and expansive canyons, Scott and I were also taken with the trees.  Because the air is so dry, dead trees seems to stick around forever creating a beautiful contrast with the blue sky and red sandstone.  Our kids started to tease us for all the “dead tree” pictures we were taking.    It wasn’t just the dead trees though, I particularly love this live tree shot Scott captured.

Canyonlands was a fun park.  It was awe inspiring and humbling and breathtaking.  But, it was also just a whole lot of circus family fun.