Another canyon, another river

We stop for a couple of nights in the dilapidated town of Green River. It's nothing more than a street of ramshackle buildings, a petrol station and a couple of motels. We didn't stay here for the dusky ambience no siree. We stopped for a couple of reasons, one the motel is actually decent and really cheap and the other being it's proximity to yet more wonders of Utah.
A German guy chats to us about his U.S. travels and of the small German towns he's visited whilst here. He seems slightly mental but we later realise he could be just slightly pissed after the brewery visits he mentioned in the late afternoon.
We miss breakfast that morning, a damning blow on this budget I can tell you, due to the clocks going forward of which we had no idea.
But the day wasn't to be cursed and soon we were in the stunning surroundings of another National Park which we knew nothing about, Canyonlands. Great name. I could only guess that it was land with many canyons?
At the entrance we see quite a few cyclists preparing for a day out in the park, not altogether common on this trip. Not far from the entrance is a couple of large red rock buttes, these are huge rectangular shaped lumps of rock jutting out of the desert landscape.


Across from the visitors centre there's a decent lookout and our first real glimpse at the land we'll be seeing today. Our first impression is like that of a smaller Grand Canyon but obviously not as wide and cluttered. Either way this place undeniably huge.


Thankfully the park is fairly quiet for a weekend, there are people about of course but it's certainly not busy by any means. It makes for a more peaceful visit away from unbelievably loud Americans, the shear size of the place helps.
We drive the 12 mile scenic drive to the end of the road at a 360 degree view of the canyon and the surrounding area for miles around. This is an odd vast flat land that appears to have just sunk straight down in the places where the river winds it's way. It also turns out that the whole canyon is a lot wider than previously thought, by a long way.
It's a lot easier on the eye than the Grand Canyon too, or maybe I should say it's just different. It definitely looks more defined, the edge of the canyon has a white rim that seems to highlight the view much more clearly than that of the Grand Canyon.

I really shouldn't compare the two as they're different landscapes but I just can't help it when one place gets soo much hype and the other goes seemingly unnoticed. But the fact is that not every place in this varied West of America can be in the forefront of promoted U.S. destinations around the world and the Grand Canyon is one of those quintessential icons for a reason.


We walk for an hour and a half to and back from Upheaval Dome. This is a large crater of sorts seemingly filled with a series of peaked earth of pale blue, yellow, red and grey colours. There is a couple of explanations as to how it's here. One of which is that it's the result of a meteorite impact that unearthed the salty soils beneath the surface.

The other scenario has almost completely left my mind but I'm sure it had something to do with erosion and wind, the usual. Whatever the cause the smooth rock scramble to view it and the sight itself was tremendous.
It's clear that Canyonlands is not a one trick pony. Mountain bikers and old guys in Jeeps ride around the unpaved ridge road. It's a fairly serious undertaking to take on the whole length of it, even overnight camping can be involved, but I didn't pay too much attention to that as I knew it was out of the question for us.

The views keep on coming of this immense land carved by the Colorado and Green Rivers. The power of water and time is an amazing thing.
A shorter walk takes us to a wide stone arch looking out over the canyon and mountains formed by our good old friend wind and time and all that. I take a photo, as often has happened around the world, for some random people stood together on top of this arch. This gives me the idea to scale it myself. For some reason my fear of heights briefly left me. On the other side of the arch is a shear drop down a smooth canyon wall. Yikes! Photos taken I can now climb down. The views were awesome non the less.


There's clearly plenty to do and see here and the long ridge road could be explored without being dull for years if you lived here.A huge varied park that is reasonably quiet and yet stunning.
Utah just keeps on surprising and the next place is featured on the state's car registration plates so it must be good, surely.