Southern Utah

I admit it, southern Utah is one of my favourite places in the world. And I'm not the only one who thinks so. The magnificent redrock country has drawn Hollywood to make everything from cowboy flicks to road movies to sci-fis. Monument Valley was one of legendary master John Ford's favourite places for making Westerns. Dead Horse Point State Park has played the part of the Grand Canyon. And Goblin Valley State Park got to play a role that's out of this world in Galaxy Quest.

People come from all over the world to see the strange stone formations at Arches National Park and Monument Valley, but insiders know that Valley of the Gods rocks just as much. More bizarreness results when water and rock collide at Goosenecks State Park and Muley Point. Canyonlands stretch out till the vast blue horizon at the aptly-named Canyonlands National Park. And if you ever get tired of the immense views and red rocks (as if!), you can always head to the hills. The green La Sals near Moab, that is.

Arches National Park

Arches National Park is home to 2,000-plus sandstone arches formed over time by the eroding power of the wind. As you drive up from the visitor centre in the valley below, it's not just the elevation that is rising. It's the anticipation. And you won't be disappointed.

Arches is best visited in the early morning or late afternoon during the summer. Too bad we are there on a summer mid-morning along with thousands of tourists in their camper vans, rental sedans and motorcycles. People come here from all over the world. And one thing is the same across cultures: not even magnificent nature can coax surly teens out of the car to be with mum and dad.

Before the law at the Courthouse Towers area	Like all boys, Steve loves having his photo taken. The three tall rocks in the background are called Three Gossips.	Balanced Rock
On the way to	Double Arch	A close-up
Look to your left!	Look to your right!	Now look straight ahead! Good boy, Steve!
Elephant Rock
The trail to Skyline Arch	Why name this Broken Arch? Looks fixed to me!
The Turret	Stars trail above one of the Window arches at night	The same Window arch

Point Taken: There's No Beating Dead Horse For the View

Dead Horse Point State Park is arguably the most beautiful state park in all Utah, says the park office. It's hard to argue with that. This narrow peninsula of rock rises hundreds of feet above the desert plains below. And below those plains, the rivers carve vast canyonlands that stretch till the eye's limit. Look out west and there's the Island in the Sky district of Canyonlands National Park. Look south to find the narrow rock outcroppings that give the Needles district of Canyonlands its name. To the east the La Sal mountain range stands guard.

When Thelma and Louise flew off the edge of the Grand Canyon, they weren't the only ones pretending. Those were Utah's canyonlands near Dead Horse Point State Park playing the part. And when Matthew Modine stands at the edge of the Grand Canyon in Equinox, that's Dead Horse once again. Thought Tom Cruise was dangling by his fingertips while rock-climbing above the Grand Canyon in Mission: Impossible 2? Yes, that was Dead Horse's canyonlands filling in for the Grand Canyon. And if you thought the mission impossible was watching the movie from start to finish, you were right!

Overlooking the canyonlands from Dead Horse Point	The bumpy, lumpy Shafer road below the Point eventually climbs up into Canyonlands National Park	Sunset glow at Dead Horse
By the dawn's early light	Snow-covered Dead Horse	...looks quite bright

Canyonlands National Park

Canyonlands National Park is actually made up of four parts: Island in the Sky which is closest to Moab, The Needles District which is south, The Maze and Horseshoe Canyon which are to the west and harder to get to. Since we're lazy, we go to the Island in the Sky.

Even so, it's quiet. Maybe the fact that Arches is so close to Moab makes it a much bigger tourist draw. Or maybe it's because we visit in the late afternoon and dawn. Or maybe it's because of the hard-pounding rain.

Apart from a retired couple in a stationwagon who aren't looking forward to pitching their tent in the monsoon, we have the place all to ourselves. The only others here are families of deer and legions of kamikaze bunnies who, like stuntmen during a car chase scene in the movies, wait till the truck is nearly upon them before they decide to run across the road. I experience twenty-four heart attacks that day. Bastard bunnies!

Can you see the Jeep make its way up the four-wheel-drive Shafer Trail? It looks like a dot. Just being helpful.
	The Green River in the distance has created deep rifts in the land.
The view from Grandview Point, Canyonlands, a few minutes before the storm on the right reached us.
	Overlooking the Needles section of Canyonlands.
Another view of the Needles overlook

Best short hikes (distance in round-trip) :
Shafer Canyon Overlook: 5 yards maybe?
Mesa Arch Trail: 0.5 mile
Grandview Point Overlook: 100 yards

Near Moab

"There are lots of things to do in Moab," says a fellow traveller on the road. There are even more things to do outside Moab! Arches, Dead Horse Point and Canyonlands parks are nearby. A few miles north of town, the Colorado Scenic Byway (Highway 128) makes for a scenic drive through the red rock canyon carved by the Colorado river.

Alfalfa farms draw water from the Colorado and make startling swatches of emerald green in the midst of the redrock valley. Traffic is stopped for roadwork. A caravan of horses takes advantage to cross the road from the nearby dude ranch. The riders are senior citizens, every one of them, their steeds taking them over the hill to hidden delights.

You may have seen nearby Fisher Valley and Onion Creek in Westerns. The redrock valley filled in for the state of Texas in the John Wayne western The Commancheros.

From the Colorado Scenic Byway, catch the road to another scenic drive, the La Sal Mountain Loop. The Loop circles from the Colorado Byway up to the La Sal mountains and back down to just south of Moab. The La Sals are so tall everything is cool and green here. Ferns grow by the side of the road, deer munch and stare at you, aspens glow white and pale and lakes nestle in shallow spots.

While pretty, the sights are an illusion. The aspen are cut up with initials, permanent marks left by couples who may already have drifted apart. Oowah Lake is filled with rusting, cheap beer cans and dead trout. And the deer are heartbreakingly tame. Down the road from us are men and boys in baseball caps and pick-up trucks and I think they are hunters. So I get out of the car and yell at the deer and they scatter over the hill, the antlered buck being the last to leave.

An old gas station sign in Green River, Utah	The Colorado Scenic Byway winds by the red Fisher valley, seen here from the La Sal mountains.	An old gas station has been turned into roadside art by the Colorado Scenic Byway.
The La Sal mountains are a cool, green oasis in the desert.	Oowah Lake is nestled in the La Sals.

Monument Valley

Mythologized in archetypal Westerns such as Stagecoach, The Searchers and How the West Was Won, Monument Valley is not to be missed. It's an awe-inspiring place and just as beautiful as the stone formations in Arches National Park, though not as developed. The Navajo live here and run the Tribal Park, which consists of a very rough 17-mile loop trail that passes by the rock formations including the famous Mittens. You can drive the road yourself. But if you're chagrined about what the first few miles do to your vehicle, you can take a ride with a Navajo guide in a Jeep or schoolbus or flatbed pick-up truck with benches welded onto the back.

Unfortunately, the only access in Monument Valley Tribal Park is motorised. At present there aren't any hiking trails to the many petroglyphs tantalisingly mentioned in the tourist brochure.

We see a dust devil whirling all by its lonely self in the middle of a valley as we drive up. It's a sign. Monument Valley churns up fine red sandstone all the time.

The Monuments are on the horizon ... can you feel the excitement?	The left Mitten.	Both Mittens.
The rough road winds past the Mittens in a 17-mile scenic loop drive.	The Mittens again.	Roasting sheep.
These tall rocks are called Three Sisters	The Totem pole rock formation in the distance	A view known as the Window

Valley of the Gods

Valley of the Gods is immensely beautiful. Like Monument Valley, it has unusual redrock formations and buttes. It also has what Monument Valley lacks: solitude.

A 17-mile dirt road goes by the red sandstone buttes. Sagebrush, tough grasses and short juniper trees dot the orange-red landscape. Twice we've visited (the first time because Karl read the map and proclaimed, "Valley of the Gods. Sounds good. Let's go there."). Both times we've had it entirely to ourselves. The solitude elevates Valley of the Gods into a truly special place.

	At the edge of the Gods.
Desert storm.
	On the road.
Dawn on a formation of the Gods.
	On the road again.
The windy, treacherous Moki Dugway (look, ma! No guardrail!) climbs out of Valley of the Gods and goes pass the turn-off to Muley Point.

Goosenecks State Park

After overnighting in the charming but not overly touristy town of Cortez, Colorado, we drive east to Goosenecks State Park. We cut through the Ute Indian reservation, a ghostly landscape of smooth pale hills lit by filtered sunlight. Beautiful but bare, bare, bare. Not even a crow watches us speed by.

A small park with immense views, Goosenecks is located midway between the small town of Bluff and the even smaller settlement of Mexican Hat. It looks over where the San Juan river has carved a windy path through layers and layers of sandstone rock. Twisting and turning back on itself, the river's path gives this place its name.

	Now that's just twisted. The San Juan river loops back on itself, cutting a deep path through the rock.
Let's twist again!

Muley Point

Muley Point overlooks more goosenecks than Goosenecks State Park.	"I'm on top of the world!"	Now where did he go?
Back from the edge.	Corin checks out the view.

Goblin Valley State Park

No, that's not really an alien planet visited by the space travellers in the sci-fi satire Galaxy Quest. But neither is it a Hollywood studio backlot. It's Goblin Valley! With its weird, toadstool-shaped rocks, it's easy to see how Goblin Valley could play the role of another planet.

At play in the fields of the goblins	More of Goblin valley	Camping in nearby Crack canyon

Back to Noir's Southwest Page