Canyonlands National Park

This afternoon, we drove over to Canyonlands NP despite threatening skies, and walked a number of short trails to overlooks and viewpoints. This park "preserves a colorful landscape eroded into countless canyons, mesas and buttes by the Colorado River and its tributaries." With only 10 inches of precipitation a year, it is arid high desert with panoramic vistas, as seen here overlooking Shafer Trail.



Upheaval Dome is 3.4 miles deep and 2 miles across, and scientists can't agree if it was caused by a meteor strike or a salt dome upheaval...



Two more overlooks are represented in these 2 shots. The storm is dead center in this shot, and though lightning bursts were prevalent, we couldn't capture one in a photo. The Green River is far off but the storm haze prevented a photo. Saturday we leave on a 9 day canoe trip down 120 miles of the Green River, half of which will have us in Canyonlands NP, but seeing the sights from a quite different perspective at water-level.





It did drizzle on us a few times, and Ellen was finally able to catch the end of a lightning strike as we drove, seen in this shot if yo click to enlarge and look closely...



Then it was back to Moab for a buffet of salad, soup, and pizza at Zax.

Here are links to our canoe trip (120 miles in 9 days) down Utah's Green River, over half of which was through Canyonlands National Park. Three posts with photos are dedicated to that trip:

1) Part 1 -- the start of the trip
2) Part 2: The Anasazi ruins found along the river
3) Part 3: Interesting facts about river trips