Our latest residence has been at the only campground in the Island In The Sky district of Canyonlands National Park. We’ve been here for six days and will be leaving tomorrow morning to head into Capitol Reef National Park, which, Yair tells me, has a flowing river and orchards as well as drinking water and other hook-ups for our RV.
Our time in Cayonlands has been spectacular. This place is built of nested canyons and desert that hosts ancient junipers, ravens, small cacti, shockingly delicate-looking flowers, swallows who dive down the dramatic cliffs, and a bizarre collection of tiny organisms that grow together over hundreds of years to form an easily overlooked yet ecologically vital black crust over the red sand.
The main attractions in this immense park are the overlooks where you can walk out onto protected ledges and look down a 1,000 foot sheer drop into a vast network of canyons which contain, after another 1,000 foot drop, a second set of maze-like canyons and the rivers that carved them. Three separate mountain ranges surround the park, making the multitiered vastness even more complex and breathtaking. At nearly any place in the park you can look up or down or across and see a geological wonder.
We were incredibly lucky to have been here during a freak three day rainstorm which brought spectacular lightning shows at night, a refreshing mist and cloud cover during the day, and snow on the far-off mountain tops. And we took advantage of the cooler days to venture out on longer hikes. Together we biked twelve miles to a two mile hike to see a mysterious crater that is called a dome. I went on a solo two and a half mile run (or attempted run – the higher altitude begs me to break often). And Yair went on an afternoon adventure including hitchhiking, hippies, and juggling – lots and lots of juggling.
We’ve also seen some more Ancestral Puebloan cliff dwellings and climbed a couple buttes which offered more fantastic views as well as the only cellular service we’ve been able to find – enabling some windy phone calls and a quick Facebook post to let people know we are indeed still alive.
After all this activity we are both feeling relaxed, a bit sore, and happily slow. The only plan for the rest of the day is to check out the night sky at the overlook near our campsite. This will be our first and last clear night here and, being one of the most remote places in the United States, the sky should be crowded with stars.
I feel so grateful to have had the opportunity to see this unique, baroque, colossal masterpiece of geology. I’m also thrilled to be moving to a place with flowing water. Refreshing, clean, dust-removing water!
