Start Location: Cortez, CO
Ending Location: Moab, UT
Miles Today: 259
Trip Miles: 3108
States Visited: 8 National Parks Visited: 7
Low Temp: 59.1° F
High Temp: 102.5° F
Min Elevation: 3964'
Max Elevation: 7093'
Route Map:
National Parks 2010 - Day10
We left Cortez this morning headed for Canyonlands National Park.
There are two entrances to the park. When we visited the
park in 2006 we went in the north entrance and were going to use the
north entrance again simply because it has more roads within the park.
After considering this, we decided instead to go in the south
entrance simply because we had not been there before. Then we
turned onto the small side road that led to the south entrance and
encountered a sign that said it would be 34 miles just to the park and
wondered if we're making a mistake. We went ahead anyway and it
was definitely the right decision. The ride in to get to the park
was as spectacular as many of the parks we have been to.
Canyonlands
was formed over millions of years by the Green and Colorado rivers and
their many streams and tributaries. They still flow through the
park today and divide it into three distinct sections - Island in the
Sky in the north which we visited in 2006, the Needles to the southeast
which is where we were today, and the Maze to the southwest which is
very difficult to reach and only available for primitive hiking and
camping. We viewed a video at the visitor center which explained
much of the history of the park and its unique characteristics.
Then we road through the park, took pictures, and did several
short hikes.
After leaving the park, we headed for Moab, UT
and Arches National Park. We also visited Arches during our 2006
trip and decided it deserved an encore. Arches contains more than
2000 natural sandstone arches including Landscape Arch which is the
longest natural stone arch in the world. Again we road through
the park stopping to take numerous pictures and doing several short
hikes.
These were both amazing sites but, by the end of a 10
hour day, we were really dragging. We decided that some day, when
we are too old to travel by motorcycle, we should come back to many of
these parks and do some extensive hiking. There are many great
hikes in all of these parks which are not especially long or strenuous
but just not cut out for motorcycle touring. Hiking in jeans,
leather chaps, and boots just doesn't make it.
For more information on both of these parks, Wikipedia has good articles on both Canyonlands and Arches.
Not sure where we head from here but probably Capitol Reef and then on to Bryce and Zion.
