Canyonlands National Park

Visted: June 2016

Duration: 1/2 day  (Finished at Arches in the morning, spent afternoon here).

Accomodations: Moab Under Canvas

As stated above, we headed over to Canyonlands National Park in the afternoon after a wonderful lunch at Quesadilla Mobilla (highly recommend).  We pulled up to the visitor center and without missing a beat the kids noticed a car with personalized plates in the employee parking lot.  The same vehicle the kids were making faces at, at City Market the night before.  They started dying laughing and of course the owner just happened to be outside and they yelled his name (from the plates).  He looked at them and knew exactly who they were and joined in on the laughter.  (one of Gunnar’s favorite memories from this trip).  He ended up being a park ranger at the park, small world.

After all of that excitement, we headed into the Island in the Sky visitor center and got some info on the park.  There are 2 other visitor centers; Maze Visitor Center and Needles Visitor Center. We didn’t make it to either of these. They are located at different entrances to the park, you can’t get to them without going out and around to the different entrances.

We drove the Island in the Sky roads and stop off at every overlook.  It reminded us of a mini Grand Canyon.  You could see for miles, it was gorgeous.

Along the road there are beautiful rock formations, shown below.  Overall you are on a literal Island in the Sky here.  It’s majestic, but I prefer to be in the canyon looking up instead of looking down.  It’s all a personal choice.  Still worth a visit.

After our drive through Canyonlands it was getting late.  We headed back to Moab to fuel up for the drive to Bryce tomorrow and grab a bite to eat.  We got our cancellations but no Junior Ranger at this park. I guess we will need to revisit.

Check back soon for Bryce Canyon National Park!  It was my favorite (tied with another) for National Park Trip Season 1.

Have you been to Canyonlands?  What would you recommend for our return visit?? I am thinking the Needles area??

Thanks for stopping by 🙂