Canyonlands National Park preserves a colorful landscape of sedimentary sandstones eroded into countless canyons, mesas and buttes by the Colorado River and its tributaries. The Colorado and Green rivers divide the park into four districts: the Island in the Sky, the Needles, the Maze and the rivers themselves. While the districts share a primitive desert atmosphere, each retains its own character and offers different opportunities for exploration and learning. Canyonlands National Park preserves 527 square miles of colorful sandstone canyons, mesas, buttes, fins, Canyonlands and spires in the heart of the Colorado Plateau in Southeastern Utah. Water and gravity have been the prime architects of this land, carving flat layers of sedimentary rock into the landscape seen today. The park was established in 1964, “…to preserve an area…possessing superlative scenic, scientific and archaeological features for the inspiration, benefit and use of the public.” Canyonlands is divided into three land districts which are two to six hours apart by car.
Canyonlands National Park is the largest and most rugged of all of Utah’s parks. The three sections of Canyonlands - Island in the Sky, the Maze and the Needles divided by the Green and Colorado rivers, are primitive worlds so vast that even repeated exploration will not uncover all their secrets.
History & Culture
While no conquering army ever marched through Canyonlands, people have hunted game here for thousands of years. The Paleo-Indian cultures lived in this area as far back as 11,500 B. C. Their descendants, the Desert Archaic people, also hunted and gathered here and by about 1000 B. C. began to grow corn. As agriculture became more important to these people, they gave up their nomadic ways and developed permanent settlements. The culture that planted crops and built villages is called the ancestral Puebloan (Anasazi).
By about A. D. 1100, there was ancestral Puebloan occupation in the Needles District of Canyonlands. The ruins around Salt Creek are evidence of small settlements.
The Fremont people, whose origins are more obscure, lived across the Colorado River to the northwest of the ancestral Puebloans. Both groups left their mark on Canyonlands. In all three areas of the park, there are scenes of hunting and harvesting, stylized figures and abstract designs left by ancient artists working in stone for purposes that remain unclear.
For about 200 years, the Fremont and ancestral Puebloan peoples cultivated crops in canyon bottoms and left rock art on canyon walls, but this was not to be a permanent home for them. A 20-year drought in the 13th century forced these groups to leave Canyonlands in search of more favorable living conditions.
For the next several hundred years, Canyonlands remained little used. Native people may have hunted in the area. It was probably not until the 1800’s that the first Europeans entered Canyonlands. In 1836, fur trapper Denis Julien traveled through this rugged country. Several more efforts to explore the area followed shortly thereafter. In 1859, Captain John N. Macomb entered Canyonlands in order to locate the confluence of the Green and the Grand rivers (as the Colorado River was then called), to chart the course of the San Juan River and to determine the most direct route from the Rio Grande of New Mexico to the small towns of southern Utah. John Wesley Powell explored the area by river in 1869 and again in 1871. Powell’s expeditions resulted in the first detailed geologic and topographic information on this area.
By 1885, cattle ranching was becoming a big business in southeast Utah and cattle were beginning to graze in Canyonlands itself. Some of the descendants of ranchers who were running cattle operations in Canyonlands during the last century are still in residence today.
In the 1950’s and 1960’s, prospectors explored Canyonlands for uranium deposits. Bulldozed roads crisscrossed the landscape and several deep shafts were dug. Although ore was found, the yields were not worth the effort required to extract it. In September 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed legislation preserving Canyonlands as a national park for the enrichment of generations to come.
Nature & Science
Canyonlands National Park is a showcase of geology. In each of the districts, visitors can see the remarkable effects of millions of years of erosion on a landscape of sedimentary rock. For hundreds of millions of years, material was deposited from a variety of sources in what is now Canyonlands National Park. As movements in the earth’s crust altered surface features and the North American continent migrated north from the equator, the local environment changed dramatically. Over time, southeast Utah was flooded by oceans, crisscrossed by rivers, covered by mudflats and buried by sand. The climate has resembled a tropical coast, an interior desert and everything in between. Layer upon layer of sedimentary rock formed as buried materials were cemented by precipitates in ground water. Each layer contains clues, like patterns or fossils, that reveal its depositional environment. For example, the red and white layers of Cedar Mesa Sandstone occur where floods of iron-rich debris from nearby mountains periodically inundated coastal dunes of white sand. Only a trace of iron is needed to color a rock red.
It is difficult to imagine such major changes and the time scale they spanned. Equally surprising is the fact that all of these rock layers were flat when they were deposited. Only recently, speaking in geologic time, have these layers eroded to form the remarkable landscape seen today.
Erosion
Until about 15 million years ago, most of the canyonlands area was near sea level. Local uplifts and volcanic activity had created features like Capitol Reef’s Waterpocket Fold and the La Sal Mountains near Moab, but then movements in the earth’s crust caused the whole area to rise. Today, the average elevation is over 5,000 feet above sea level.
The uplifting of this region, known as the Colorado Plateau, marked a shift from a depositional environment to one of erosion. The Colorado and Green rivers began to downcut and are now entrenched in canyons over 2,000 feet deep. Sediment-filled storm run-off drains into these rivers, scouring the surrounding landscape of into a network of tributary canyons, pour-offs and washes.
How sedimentary rock weathers depends largely on its exposure to water. An erosion- resistant caprock of White Rim Sandstone may protect a weaker layer of shale until only a thin spire remains. Examples of such “standing rocks” can be seen in both the Island in the Sky and the Maze districts. In addition to floods, the expansion of freezing water is a powerful erosive force. As ice loosens surface material and widens cracks, everything becomes more vulnerable to the next big storm.
Another significant factor in the shaping of Canyonlands is the Paradox Formation, a layer of sea water evaporates from the Pennsylvanian Period. Deeply buried, the salts in this layer can liquefy under the weight of the overlying rock, flowing, like toothpaste, away from the source of greatest overburden. In response, the upper layers may bow up, creating a salt dome, or erode and collapse, creating a salt valley.
This phenomenon is especially visible in the Needles, where parallel cracks or “joints” formed in the surface rock as buried layers slumped toward Cataract Canyon. These cracks are perpendicular to an older system of cracks created by the “Monument Uplift.” The resulting crosshatched pattern of joints has eroded so that great blocks of sandstone have been reduced to thin spires of rock.
Recreation
Most visits to Canyonlands involve hiking, biking, boating or four-wheel driving in the park’s backcountry. Overnight trips are common. For day trips, the Island in the Sky is the most accessible district, offering expansive views from many overlooks along the paved scenic drive, as well as several short hiking trails.
Hiking
Canyonlands has hundreds of miles of hiking trails which explore the park’s natural and cultural features. Both the Island in the Sky and the Needles provide ample opportunities for short walks, day hikes and backpacking trips. Due to its remoteness, the Maze is primarily a backpacking destination.
Trails are usually marked with cairns (small rock piles) and have signs at intersections. Many remote trails do not receive regular maintenance and may not be adequately marked.
Biking
Canyonlands is famous for its mountain biking terrain, particularly for the 100 mile White Rim Road at the Island in the Sky. The Maze District also offers some multi-day trip possibilities, though the logistics and roads are more difficult (for the support vehicles, not the bikes). Many of the roads in the Needles District travel up wash bottoms and are unsuitable for bikes due to deep sand and water.
Mountain bikes groups must remain on established roads and camp in designated sites. There is no single-track riding in the park.
Getting There
There are two paved entrances into Canyonlands National Park: Highway 313 leads to the Island in the Sky District and is 10 miles north of Moab; Highway 211 leads to the Needles District and is 40 miles south of Moab. Roads to the Maze District are a mixture of graded dirt and 4WD. These roads may become impassable when wet.
Traveler Facts
Contact Information
Canyonlands National Park
2282 SW Resource Blvd
Moab, UT 84532
Phone: 435-719-2313
Fax: 435-719-2300
Weather/Climate
Southeast Utah is part of the Colorado Plateau, a “high desert” region that experiences wide temperature fluctuations, sometimes over 40 degrees in a single day. The temperate (and most popular) seasons are spring (April through May) and fall (mid-September through October), when daytime highs average 60 to 80 F and lows average 30 to 50 F.
Summer temperatures often exceed 100 F, making strenuous exercise difficult. Late summer monsoon season brings violent storm cells which often cause flash floods.
Winters are cold, with highs averaging 30 to 50 F and lows averaging 0 to 20 F. Though large snowfalls are uncommon (except in nearby mountains), even small amounts of snow or ice can make local trails and roads impassable.
