10 Best Things to Do in Canyonlands National Park!

If you think about visiting Canyonlands National Park, you've made a good choice. We're Matt and Cheryl and we love to explore Canyonlands. We live in Utah and have been there several times. So in this video we are going to share with you our top 10 favorite things to do in Canyonlands National Park. And we're going to start off with the most generic but one of the best things to do which is Mesa Arch. You know everyone goes to arches to see the arches but Canyonlands actually has a few of their own and Mesa Arch is beautiful. It's really really popular for sunrises. You'll see a big gathering of people there and something super cool about Mesa Arch is it sits right on the wall of the canyon. Well cool and scary. Now yes back in the day when it wasn't so crowded, we took our young family there. You know we had toddlers and we're hiking up the trail and the kids were just a little ahead of us. They got to the arch and they were looking at it and then we looked at the other side and it was a drop-off. We about died. We we had no idea what was on the other side of that arch and oh my gosh we are even now when we see it it just kind of it brings those memories back. It's it's a little deceiving so they climbed right up to the edge and then we had no idea sheer drop 1500 foot drop on the other side. Oh man we still just shudder to think about it. Now the next one I want to talk about is the Green River Overlook. So Canyonlands to me looks a lot like the Grand Canyon which of course is amazing because the Grand Canyon is amazing and I think you know when you go and you're looking inside a canyon there's lots of different views you can see but my favorite views are always the ones where I can see the river at the bottom of it and so that's why this is one of our favorite ones is you can look below and see the Green River running through it. Several viewpoints and they are kind of Grand Canyon like viewpoints. It's not as deep as the Grand Canyon but it is much more vast and wide than the Grand Canyon. In the distance you get to see another mountain range. You can see the Henry Mountains out in the distance and then for me the history of it is also interesting. There's a sign there that talks about John Wesley Powell who's the first person to successfully float all the way through the Grand Canyon but he started his trip along the Green River and floated through Canyonlands. Him and his men must have just been blown away by the scenery in southern Utah as they floated through on the Green River and then eventually the Colorado River. Next up is the best drive in the park if you've got nerves of steel and that is the Schaefer Trout. So we have visited Canyonlands several times before we attempted this drive okay because what it is is it's a very narrow windy dirt road that hugs up along the ledge of the canyon and you know you work your way down to the bottom and then you know you head back to Moab and it's about a two-hour drive but so before we went on it this last time we were looking over the edge watching people do this drive and it was intense. It was so funny because I don't think it was helping Matt's confidence at all because you'd see people backing up and turning and bypassing each other on the wrong side it was kind of crazy. Oh my gosh. The images are really interesting that you see online because it doesn't the images are hard to convey how steep it is but there's one particular angle where you can see how steep the ride is and also the the cliffs and so yeah when you're going it's it's pretty intense experience I thought and we've driven several high mountains high mountain passes but the red rock has sheer drops so it's a little different. We think that it's a great adventure if you've got the nerves of still and the skill but you know if it's going to scare the bejeebers out of you just have a great time driving the other roads throughout the park. One of the most fun national park experiences we've ever had most memorable I would say. A couple of tips is you want to check with the ranger before going to make sure the conditions are good. Typically the switchbacks going down to the bottom are graded and are in pretty good condition but once you get to the bottom you can then either turn around and go right back up the switchbacks if you want or you can continue along the Schaefer Trail which is a two-hour bumpy ride. We bottomed out at one point in our Toyota Sequoia. I can't believe we did see a few cars along that drive. I don't know how they were doing it but I would do a high clearance four-wheel drive vehicle to get through that. It's fun, it's scenic, you go around Dead Horse Point State Park you have just really wonderful views going all along so if you can do it it's great. Okay up next is Aztec Butte. This is my favorite hike in the Island in the Sky District. It's not all that long it's about a mile and a half or two and it actually takes you to two different buttes. So there's a lower butte that you go to and when you scramble up on that one you'll get to these interesting Indian ruins. These are granaries that they used. You cannot touch these it's a felony if you touch these but they are interesting and they're kind of tucked underneath the cliff there. That was a really fun surprise for me. I did this hike in the morning all by myself right after sunrise at Mesa Arch and nobody else was around. So on the second butte when you go over to the second butte that's actually Aztec Butte and it's higher and you have to do a lot of scrambling to get up on top. It was really fun to do all the scrambling and then once you get up there you walk to the other side and you have some insane views of the entire Island in the Sky as well as some side canyons that you'd never see without being up there. Really cool I mean this was such a surprise and such a great great hike but I did think on my way down as I was scrambling back down I thought if I twisted an ankle I'd be out here all alone. I'd be in a bad bad way so take somebody with you when you do it but if you're if you're you know adventurous and you can scramble up the side of a red rock hill or something like that do it because this was a really fun hike. And the next one is I'd say the backup to Aztec. Yeah because when we went with our family and retired parents we just knew that the group was not up for doing the more intense Aztec view so we did the Upheaval Dome and the Upheaval Dome is an interesting interesting formation and I can't even describe it. Besides Matt did write some fun notes on here he said if earth had a belly button it would be an outie and it's Upheaval Dome. There's signs of speculation of how this thing was created and it's kind of fun to look at and be like huh I wonder which of these theories I believe. Yeah it's a it's a mystery how it was formed. It's not actually a dome they but they think it was once a salt dome that then collapsed. So it's actually like a pointy weird round formation. I can't say it's like pretty necessarily but it is interesting like how in the world did this get formed here? And what's interesting is the hike to get there is kind of steep but it's pretty short so it's a pretty popular one to do in Canyonlands. But last time we were there we talked to a guy who had his backpack on and I was like what are you going backpacking right now? And he said yeah I'm gonna go camp at the bottom of Upheaval Dome. So he actually hiked down to the bottom and slept there for the night. I thought that was pretty interesting. That'd be pretty cool to try sometime. But just a quirky interesting and mysterious formation that they're still not sure how it was formed. And we wanted to let you know that we have other videos on Canyonlands, Arches, Moab and we actually have a website we'reintherockies.com where we write up a lot of this information and it has a lot of good things to help you out to plan your trip. We also have a guide as well but yeah I mean take advantage of any of the resources we have to help you plan a trip because that's what we create is we want people to have amazing trips to the west. Okay now the next one is actually probably my favorite overlook in Canyonlands Island in the Sky District. It's called the White Rim Overlook Trail and this is a pretty good trail if you're just looking for an easier hike. So Upheaval Dome is short but it is steep. Hashtag beet requires some scrambling. White Rim Overlook Trail is about two miles round trip and it's very flat. This is kind of a nice thing and it just goes through some interesting landscape up on the plateau and then you do get to an overlook of the canyon below. In this case you're overlooking the Colorado River and it's one of the best views into the canyons of the Colorado River that I've seen. Now all the views on the island in the sky are really good so I'm not going to say like go out of your way to do this hike just to get that view. I did find it to be the best view but they're all great so I'm not sure it's worth the two mile hike if you're just in it for the views right. But if you're looking for a nice easy hike to kind of get out and walk along the plateau there at Island in the Sky that's a really good one. Okay next up is also one that I did and Cheryl didn't do. This is called Horseshoe Canyon. Okay so now we're leaving the Island in the Sky District and we're going to a different area of the park which is on the other side of the Green River. Horseshoe Canyon is a pretty famous canyon for the petroglyphs that are located within the canyon and that's why it's protected as its own little section of the park. It's an hour and a half away from Green River Utah and you have to drive out on a dirt road to get there. It's really really really remote and then once you get there you have about a seven mile round trip hike and the first mile goes down the canyon wall and then it's very flat through this incredibly gorgeous canyon that has when I did it I did it in May and it was just wildflowers and trees in bloom and it was super gorgeous and all along the way you're going to see different petroglyph or pictograph panels that have drawings from from Indians long long ago and some of the most famous ones are in there like the Holy Ghost Panel that is probably 2,000 plus years old. They were really cool. I loved them because they're kind of these haunting images. They're long and narrow. One of my favorite hikes that I've ever done. All right our next one is a drive and it's a drive through the Needles District and the Needles is pretty remote but very pretty and we have a video like Utah's most scenic drives or you could actually see this if you want to see this after the video but as we were driving through this I was like wow do we even need to hike because this drive is so beautiful and scenic. Needles is the lesser visited section of Canyonlands. Wow that drive is awesome and so next to Schaefer Trail the best scenic drive in Canyonlands I would say. A really really cool petroglyph panel along the way called Newspaper Rock. It's just a roadside stop with incredible rock art all along that wall then you arrive at the park but just a lovely drive. Okay up next is Cave Spring Trail. So once you arrive in the Needles District they have several short little trails all of which are really enjoyable but my most favorite one is Cave Spring Trail. It's only 0.6 miles a loop. What you'll find there is a cowboy camp that's still set up there so this whole area used to be a cattle ranching operation. 1.8 million acres large was this cattle ranching operation. There were some companies from Texas that came up and tried to get started here as well. So pretty interesting a lot of cowboys roam this area with the cattle and they set up a cowboy camp here because there is a spring in the rock so you can see some water dripping down and some growth which is always interesting in the desert I think and the park has left a lot of the original stuff from the cowboy camp there and then I think they've recreated a few other things but that was really fun to see and then you get to climb up some ladders and get to the top of the rock. The ladders are a fun little experience and when you get up to the top you get to see some really cool views all the way around the Needles District so one of the favorite trails it's just a short trail good bang for your buck. Next up is the Chesler Park hike. We've known about this hike for a while but we finally did it about a year and a half ago and we are so glad we did. We headed out there in May when it wasn't too hot yet. It's a loop and so you're supposed to go do it counterclockwise but we screwed up and did it clockwise. It still turned out okay but you're hiking it there's a little tidbit for you but it's neat because you kind of hike along the top of the of the buttes and you can see some needles down there and then there's slot canyons you get to shimmy through but my very very favorite thing I did there was look at the desert flowers like you kind of hike through these rocks and all of a sudden it opens up and you can just as far as the eye can see is just flat plains but there's desert flowers growing in a spot you would never expect them to be and it was so beautiful and the other thing that kind of shocked me about this hike so it's 11 miles which we've done hikes this long before and it was May so it wasn't too hot but I chugged through four liters of water on that hike. I mean my camel yeah I mean I had my full camelback and I had some reserve water and by the end of the trail it was gone. I've never been so thirsty. We started it before sunrise as well so May is a good time to visit these parks like early May because of the desert wildflowers and they sure make a difference man they are enjoyable and this is called the park for a reason Chesler Park as you hike through it it's like you're walking through this just beautiful nature park it was so cool and all those wildflowers were so fantastic really unusual for the desert to have that green growth out there and this is actually the inspiration or the heart of Canyonlands National Park like the when Canyonlands was formed it was because the guy who was the superintendent of Arches National Park was always going out into this section exploring it and just fell in love with it and then that's how we got it to become a national park. Today the island in the sky is more popular but the Needles District is really wonderful especially if you can get out of your car and walk to or through the Chesler Park. By the way she mentioned to go counterclockwise and that's because if you go counterclockwise you'll be going down the steepest section. If you go clockwise like we did you end up going up the steepest section near the end of the hike and it was quite a workout for us. Yeah we were pretty we were pretty worn out. That was another time when Matt said never again but now he's like oh I love it. Yeah yeah for sure so it'll it'll work you but it's worth it. Okay now if you are visiting Canyonlands and Moab and Arches we have a video that's the top 10 things to do in Arches National Park that you can check out and then if you want help planning your trip there watch this Moab and Arches and Canyonlands trip planner that we put together for you. Thanks so much for joining us and until next time Go West Young Travelers!