While I was in Utah I did spend a lot of my time at Arches National Park, but I stayed that week in Moab and also visited other attractions in the area. It was a little bit different type of stay than I normally do, but it was nice. I stayed at the Canyonlands RV Resort in the middle of Moab that is central to everything. The sites are small and tight but you can walk to most of the town from the park and even have food delivered to you at your campsite. Of course I couldn’t do much walking because I really went at the wrong time of year. While it did cool off at night, by the time I got finished working every day, it was way too hot for Bella to walk on the pavement.
We had a nice site at the end of the park, close to the bathhouse and store, under a nice tree. Bella enjoyed the sun in the mornings while I worked at the picnic table. She also found some sun in the mornings on the concrete while I made breakfast. Like many places I went, a lot of places were still closed due to Covid so that also limited what we did, but we did make sure to get pictures in front of the Moab postcard sign.
At the end of the week I did make a point to at least make it to Canyonlands National Park, but with the heat and drive from Moab I only spent one day and did some photography from the main road and parking lots. I went to the Island in the Sky section, which is the northern section that is the most accessible for driving. I did end up getting a huge variety of lighting and colors though because I went in the evening as a storm was coming in and planned to be there at sunset.
While some areas are similar to the Grand Canyon, one big difference is that driving through the Island in the Sky section of the park the canyon expands along both sides, where as with the Grand Canyon, you drive around the rim. It definitely makes it a most interesting drive to see all the different formations along the road on both sides. It definitely makes you feel like you are on an Island among the deep craters.
A large portion of these pictures were taken from the aptly named “Grand Viewpoint” at the end of the road that is a peninsula at the southern most part of that section of the park. It offers a huge variety of landscapes, rock formations, rock types, depths of canyons and even includes views of the LaSalle Mountains in the distance.
The Green River Overlook and Holeman Spring Canyon Overlook sections of the park offer different landscape with more rock formations at the elevation of the road. No matter where you are in the park there are amazing views of the Lasalle Mountains in the background. This is the section I was in when the storm came in so I got some great cloud formations in my shots.
I was able to make it back to entrance by sunset to get some amazing shots with the storm clouds, over the canyon. My biggest regret is that I only had one day here. In my future trips I plan to stay at least a week here and have a week for The Arches.
Our last day in Moab was my day I dedicated for Bella. Unfortunately she could not get out and walk in the National Parks and as you know, she’s a little adventure hiker. Since our last day was a Saturday we got up early and went to the Grandstaff Canyon Hiking Trail north of Moab. It’s a fairly easy trail and is along the boarder of The Arches National Park so it has a lot of the same beauty as the park. It had just enough adventure for her to not feel left it. I will close out this post with some Bella hiking pics since I haven’t dedicated much time to her in my last few posts.
Amy and Bella's Teardrop Adventures 