Done with Arches, and knowing it would be another blistering hot day, we hit the road early. Next up was a drive to southwest Utah through Canyonlands National Park and Capitol Reef National Park. We figured we’d just do the scenic park drives and a couple of short hikes for overlooks in the parks, and take scenic roads from Moab to Bryce.
At Canyonlands, Mesa Arch was the highlight for us. It was a short hike, and the view was really cool. An interesting arch on the edge of a cliff with an 800′ drop view through the arch.
The traill to “Upheaval Dome” was another one of those where we had to keep an eye out for the trail markers!
The “Upheaval Dome” looks like the new growth of mountain inside a crater. It reminded us of what Mt. St. Helens did.
After Canyonlands, we headed West toward Capitol Reef National Park. Along the way, more interesting Utah landscapes! These rock/sand cliffs are enormous!
At Capitol Reef, we just did the scenic drive.
It was beautiful! So many colors and types of rock!
Back on the road, headed to Bryce, we went on back scenic roads, of course. This always means we have lots of change in elevation and lots of squiggles to keep the driver awake. We were over 8000′ elevation somewhere along the way.
There are a lot of free range cattle in the upper elevations. We saw lots of cows, but never any that had flags on them. 🙂
This is where I distracted myself by taking pictures. This was what they call a razorback – where the road was along the top of a ridge, with canyons on both sides. I couldn’t get myself to look out the side to take a picture… eyes straight ahead!! YIKES!
And more scenes from the drive. Red rock cliffs. White sand cliffs. And always squiggly roads. I’m sure glad that neither of us gets car sick, because these roads are so fun and beautiful! Way better than interstate freeways!
It was an interesting day in the car (260 miles) with such a broad spectrum of scenery! Utah as some of the strangest rocks, cliffs, sand, and yet beautiful pine forest mountains.