6/29: Canyonlands

The forecast declared that our days in Utah would be quite hot, so we made our plans accordingly. Our plan was to get up early to get a head start on the heat, and although we did not make it out the door as early as we wanted due to various things, we did head to the Needles side of Canyonlands National Park. (The park is split in half by a giant canyon and could only be entered by two separate sides. It took us almost two hours. The drive was completely worth it though! We stopped in the visitor center to get our National Parks passport stamp. Then we drove up to do a couple short walks while seeing the narrow rock structures that are called needles, giving that side of the park its name. 

Our first walk was on some rocks that have divots that fill with water and wildlife when it rains. The path was marked by small piles of rocks, so it became a game to figure out which way to go across the rocks! The views on the second half of the walk were spectacular. We couldn't get enough!

The second walk of the day was to see some an old cowboy station and picture writings by Indians. Seeing the picture writings was cool, except that a pool lay near by that bred mosquitos! Needless to say that shortened our time at that location. ;)

We then came across the ladders that we had been warned about at the beginning. It led us up to the top of the rocks again. The first ladder scared both of us (although Alyssa kept calmed to help me!), but we made it successfully up and across. Another scramble up an additional ladder revealed more breath-taking views of the Needles! 

After this walk, the heat was beginning to get to us and with a limited water supply we decided to head back to our cabin. We cooked lunch and relaxed before going to the Island in the Sky section of Canyonlands. Since it had not yet cooled down enough for walking around much more, we opted to stop at the lookouts instead. WOW. Gorgeous canyon lay before us proclaiming the vastness of our God. I stood in awe of my Creator; my breath taken away.

*Little kitchen in our cabin!