Slickrock Foot Trail

La Sal Mountains rise above the Colorado River Canyonlands

2.5 miles loop, 150 feet elevation gain
Difficulty: Easy-moderate
Access: Paved road to trailhead, Canyonlands National Park entrance fee required

Slickrock Foot Trail is a short but enjoyable hike with views of Island in the Sky in the Needles District of Utah's Canyonlands National Park. The Needles District of Canyonlands sees far fewer visitors than the visitor areas closer to Moab but has plenty of gorgeous Canyonlands scenery. Although in the Needles District Slickrock Foot Trail does not approach the eponymous rock formations but offers views of the spires from a distance; instead, the hike delivers views over Big and Little Spring Canyons and of the high canyon walls that surrounds this area on many sides. It's a relatively easy hike, although most of the trail is across slickrock and there are occasional spots where there are relatively tall rock steps or uneven rock surfaces.

I hiked the Slickrock Foot Trail with my mom during a November road trip through the Utah canyonlands. We stayed in Monticello the night before and reached the trailhead from there, although it is far more likely that you'll be visiting from Moab. From Moab, take US 191 south for 40 miles to the turnoff for Route 211 to the Needles District. Here, turn right and follow Route 211, passing the incredibly preserved petroglyphs at the excellent Newspaper Rock State Historical Monument on the way into Canyonlands National Park's Needles District. Upon entering the park, we followed the road to its end at Big Spring Canyon Overlook. The trailhead is 200 yards back along the road from the Big Spring Canyon Overlook but the parking areas between the overlook and the trailhead effectively overlap.

View from Big Spring Canyon Overlook

The trail leaves from the northeast side of the road and, true to its name, almost immediately hits the slickrock. There was some initial gentle elevation gain as the trail climbed up onto a plateau between Big and Little Spring Canyons. Here, excellent views opened up in most directions: the Needles were visible to the south, an unruly skyline of red and white sandstone towers over 400 feet tall.

The Needles

The trail soon stuck closer to the east side of the plateau, delivering nice views across the sandstone benches below us to the canyon walls that define this section of the Canyonlands. The two Six Shooter Peaks rose in the distance, the eroded remants of Wingate Sandstone towers. These two peaks, which lie outside Canyonlands National Park in Bears Ears National Monument, have been mistakenly captioned as the Bears Ears Buttes in multiple prominent national publications; the actual Bears Ears Buttes are much farther to the south, rising above the Cedar Mesa area.

Sixshooter Peak rises above the Canyonlands

A half mile into the hike, we came to a junction with the Slickrock Foot Trail loop. We chose to hike the loop counterclockwise, taking the right fork at this junction. This right fork kept us on the east side of the plateau. The trail continued making its way across slickrock, the route forward marked by cairns. At two points, there were spur trails that broke off to the right, leading out to overlooks over Little Spring Canyon. The views of the great Wingate Formation cliffs that rose behind the canyon and the lofty La Sal Mountains beyond that were quite impressive.

La Sal Mountains and Wingate formation cliffs

We continued to follow the slickrock plateau as it narrowed; at a third overlook, we gazed north to the confluence of Little and Big Spring Canyons. After the canyons joined, they cut progressively deeper into the sedimentary layers of the Colorado Plateau as they approached the Colorado River itself. Looking farther to the north, we could see Island in the Sky and Junction Butte rising across the Colorado River. We could make out a layer of burgundy cliffs beneath the Wingate Sandstone: this was the Organ Rock formation, which was topped with a thin layer of the White Rim Formation. These burgundy cliffs and towers across the river made up Monument Basin, one of the most scenic areas of the Canyonlands when viewed from Grand View Point from the Island in the Sky.

Just as the Big and Little Spring Canyons joined here, we were only miles from the point where the Colorado River meets its greatest tributary, the Green River. The confluence of these rivers marks the geographical and spiritual heart of the Canyonlands: the joining of two of the most incredible canyon-carving rivers of the North American continent, which combine after having separately carved the Flaming Gorge of Wyoming, the Gates of Lodore in Dinosaur National Monument, Utah's Desolation Canyon, and Colorado's Black Canyon of the Gunnison. Downstream from here, the combined waters of the mighty Colorado carve Cataract Canyon, Glen Canyon, and then the greatest of all the canyonlands- the Grand Canyon. The Colorado River upstream of the confluence was initially known as the Grand River; the Grand and the Green are of similar size at the confluence, although the Green is longer (having originated in the Wind River Range of Wyoming), while the Grand- the modern Colorado- has a slightly higher flow rate.

Junction Butte and Island in the Sky rises over Big Spring Canyon

After leaving the third overlook, the trail rounds the northern end of the plateau, descending to a slightly lower rock layer as it began to head south again along Big Spring Canyon. From this stretch of trail, there were some excellent views directly down into Big Spring Canyon itself as well as out to the Needles to the south and the buttes and cliffs rising to the west across the Colorado River in the Maze District. The Wingate Formation mesas that make up Island in the Sky and the Needles Overlook also bound the Canyonlands to the west.

The Needles rising above Big Spring Canyon

Canyonlands

Leaving the rim of Big Spring Canyon, the trail ascended slightly to regain the top of the slickrock plateau. Cairns marked the route across the plateau, which had constant views of the Needles rising ahead. We made our way over the rolling slickrock terrain for a half mile from the overlooks over Big Spring Canyon to close the loop and then followed the last half mile of trail back to the trailhead.

View of the Needles from atop the slickrock

While not the most spectacular hike in the Needles District of Canyonlands National Park, the scenery along the Slickrock Foot Trail is enjoyable and the trail as a whole is fairly easy to hike despite some minor terrain difficulties. Visitors to the Needles District looking for some varied scenery but uninterested in embarking on the longer hike to Chesler Park will find this to be a satisfying hike.

Chesler Park

The Needles from the pass above Chesler Park

6 miles round trip, 1100 feet elevation gain
Difficulty: Moderate
Access: Gravel road to trailhead, Canyonlands National Park entrance fee required

The hike to Chesler Park visits the heart of the Needles District in Utah's Canyonlands National Park, a maze of red rock spires and sinewy canyons. This is an excellent hike with great views that grants access into the depths of this red rock wonderland; besides the hike to Horseshoe Canyon, this is perhaps the best day hike in Canyonlands National Park. The hike passes many sandstone spires and leads to Chesler Park, a wide and scenic grassland encircled by the Needles. The Needles District of Canyonlands is accessible by a paved but long drive from Moab and sees far fewer visitors than Island in the Sky or Arches, though many of the visitors who make it out here will choose to hike to Chesler Park. While I'm just describing a round trip hike to Chesler Park in this post, many hikers continue onward to make a loop near the grassland by hiking through the narrow canyon known as the Joint.

I hiked to Chesler Park with my mom during a November road trip through the Utah canyonlands. We stayed in Monticello the night before and reached the trailhead from there, although it is far more likely that you'll be visiting from Moab. From Moab, take US 191 south for 40 miles to the turnoff for Route 211 to the Needles District. Here, turn right and follow Route 211 for 37 miles, passing the incredibly preserved petroglyphs at the excellent Newspaper Rock State Historical Monument on the way into Canyonlands National Park's Needles District. After passing the visitor center and then the Wooden Shoe Overlook, we turned left onto the Elephant Hill Road, turning right at the next two junctions after that to get onto the gravel road that led us to the Elephant Hill Trailhead at the bottom of a canyon. The Elephant Hill Road is open to passenger cars up to the trailhead but is for 4WD vehicles by permit only beyond that point.

The parking area was nearly full during our visit on a November weekend, as this is perhaps the most popular hike in the Needles District. From the trailhead, the trail immediately began a steep ascent up dirt and slickrock as it ascended out of a canyon and onto a shelf above. Once the trail reached the top of the shelf, we found great views of the surrounding Canyonlands country. The La Sal Mountains rose to the west- one of the tallest mountain ranges within the Colorado Plateau. The Abajo Mountains lay to the south, a lower range near Monticello. The many of the layers of the Colorado Plateau formed the dramatic canyons around us: in the needles, lighter layers of caprock topped columns and canyon walls of red sandstone. In the distance rose the mighty canyon walls of the Wingate Formation, which forms the high mesas of Island in the Sky and Junction Butte. One of the more notable eroded remnants of the Wingate cliffs was Six Shooter Peak, one of two buttes near the Needles District just outside the park in Bears Ears National Monument, which have been mistakenly identified as the Bears Ears Buttes themselves by multiple publications. 

La Sal Mountains and the Canyonlands

Junction Butte and Island in the Sky

Six Shooter Peak

Abajo Mountains

Two-thirds of a mile of hiking brought us through a narrow gap in the sandstone on Elephant Hill. Emerging on the other side, we had better views of Elephant Hill, a cluster of spires of Cedar Mesa Sandstone near the trail. The trail stayed fairly flat as it continued traversing the bench, with occasional sections that required scrambling up or down rock steps or angled slickrock. As we hiked through this section, my mom pointed out that a few of the rounded, stout outcrops of Cedar Mesa Sandstone looked like hamburgers, which I was couldn't unsee after she pointed it out.

Elephant Hill

Hamburger rocks

At just over a mile into the hike, we crossed a pass through Elephant Hill and came to a stunning view of the Needles spread out ahead of us. From this viewpoint, a city skyline of sandstone rose before us, the spires sporting the bands of red and white rock that is the signature of the Needles. Hikers looking for a short hike might turn back here but the best still lay ahead.

The Needles

Leaving the pass, the trail descended just slightly and then crossed through a grassy plain dotted with junipers. At the end of the plain, the Elephant Hill trail intersected with a trail coming from the Squaw Flat Campground, 1.4 miles from the trailhead; here, we took the right fork to continue onward towards Chesler Park. After passing the junction, the trail immediately passed through a narrow cut in a sandstone fin and entered a valley sandwiched between ridges of Needles. The trail descended just slightly as it circled around the next set of rock spires.

The Needles

Rounding a corner, the trail suddenly dropped into a narrow and very straight joint of fractured Cedar Mesa sandstone. This joint- like the better known stretch known as the Joint beyond Chesler Park- is formed by the very same fracturing that resulted into the individual spires of sandstone in the Needles. As in nearby Arches National Park, the sandstone layers here are underlaid by the Paradox Formation, a body of salt lying beneath the many sedimentary layers that form the Canyonlands. Deformation of this salt layer contributes to fracturing of the surface sandstone layers above, which have cracked into a grid-like layout that erodes into the pinnacle shapes and rock joints that we see today.

Trail passing through narrow rock joint

Continuing down the rock joint, it opened up into a small canyon with trees. Here, the trail began to descend more as it hugged the sides of the canyon. Soon, the small side canyon opened up into the larger Elephant Canyon and the trail descended steeply down to the wash at the bottom of Elephant Canyon. At the bottom of the wash, I came to a trail junction at 2 miles from the trailhead: the trail heading to the left up the wash led towards Druid Arch, so I crossed the wash and continued following the trail ahead towards Chesler Park.

Descending into a wash

The stretch of trail climbing out of Elephant Canyon was one of the most difficult of the hike, packing in over 200 feet of elevation gain after 2 miles of generally level hiking. The slickrock terrain here made the elevation gain much harder. As I climbed out of the canyon, I enjoyed the views of a colorful ridge of the Needles on the other side of Elephant Canyon.

The Needles

After the trail climbed out of Elephant Canyon and back onto a grassy plain on the shelf layer, I found views of some of the most impressive spires of the Canyonlands. Massive rock pinnacles rose ahead of me, marking the eastern wall of the ring of pointed rocks bordering Chesler Park.

Approaching the Chesler Park pass

As I continued the gentle uphill along the trail, great views opened to the northwest of the dense field of rock spires known as the Devil's Kitchen. This was one of my favorite parts of the hike; many of the Needles soared over 400 feet tall, making this scene truly seem like a city of stone.

The Needles

At 2.7 miles, the Chesler Park Trail split from the Devils Kitchen Trail. Here, I took the left fork, following the Chesler Park Trail as it began a short ascent, climbing a hundred feet up to a pass in a wall of the Needles. Crossing the pass, I found a wide grassland laid out before me, bound on all sides by red and white sandstone spires. I had arrived in Chesler Park.

Chesler Park

Descending slightly from the pass, I arrived at a junction at 2.9 miles: here, the trail split apart for the Chesler Park Loop. I took the left fork and wandered a bit farther down the trail to a nice high point with views across the grassland itself as well as back towards the pass that marked the entrance into Chesler Park. While many hikers chose to complete the loop- which adds about another 5 miles of hiking- I ended my hike here, soaking in the views of red rock spires all around me.

Chesler Park

Chesler Park

Horseshoe Canyon

Anthropomorphic pictographs of the Great Gallery

7 miles round trip, 750 feet elevation gain
Difficulty: Easy-moderate, but bring lots of water
Access: Long gravel road to the middle of nowhere, no entrance fee

Hidden in the remote Canyonlands of Utah, Horseshoe Canyon contains one of the most significant and haunting collections of rock art in the United States- the prehistoric Great Gallery, a panel of dark red, limbless anthropomorphic pictographs silently guarding these desert canyon walls. Painted over a thousand years ago, this is the largest and best preserved collection of Barrier Canyon style pictographs in the Southwest. The day hike to these pictographs is not too difficult, but be prepared to travel to the middle of nowhere- hours from any towns or cities, this is the landscape where Aron Ralston found himself trapped for 127 hours, inspiring the movie of that name.

In summer, the Canyonlands can get hot. It is absolutely essential to carry enough water, as there is usually none in the canyon. You may see that this is not a strenuous hike and assume you can get away without much water, but the sun here is relentless and the sandy bottom of the canyon can be tiring to hike through. Bring at least two liters of water per person.

I hiked Horseshoe Canyon on the last day of a weeklong fall trip to the Canyonlands region with my mom. The Horseshoe Canyon of Canyonlands National Park is about as close to the middle of nowhere as you'll get- 4.5 hours away from Salt Lake City and still an hour and a half from Hanksville, the nearest available services to the canyon. My mom and I came from Hanksville as we finished up a clockwise driving loop around the Canyonlands via Arches and Bears Ears. From Hanksville, we headed out early, taking Utah Highway 24 north until reaching a sign for a dirt road on the right for the Hans Flat Ranger Station. We turned here and started the long drive on unpaved roads to the trailhead. The dirt road initially headed east but soon came to somewhat of a T-intersection, where we headed to the right and followed the road south. The road made a sharp left bend after reaching a ranch at the foot of a hill and swung east, crossing a saddle between two buttes. The road continued across a flat stretch of desert before climbing a bit up a hill; at the top of the hill, a spur road broke off the to the right towards a house. We ignored that spur and continued taking the main road, which followed the top of the hill with views of the San Rafael Swell to the west until swinging east again. Soon, we passed a set of Sand Dunes on our right, which caught the morning sun and appeared quite dramatic with the Henry Mountains as a backdrop. Continuing past the sand dunes, the road came to a fork at a Canyonlands National Park info board; the road to the right led to Hans Flat Ranger Station and the Maze, so we took the left fork here to continue towards Horseshoe Canyon. We followed this road for about another five miles before we finally came to the turnoff for Horseshoe Canyon on the right. Taking this turn, we drove two miles to the end of the road and arrived at the parking lot for Horseshoe Canyon.

Sand dunes and the Henry Mountains

We were the only people in the parking area. Signing in at the trail register, I noted that a few groups per day made it out to the canyon on weekends but that the trail was often untouched on weekdays.

From the trailhead, the trail began a gradual descent into the canyon (it's important to remember that you'll have to ascend on your return!). The trail was quite rocky in places as it made its way downhill. The open terrain provided nice views of the surroundings; the La Sal Mountains were visible in the distance to the east and the flat mesa tops on the other side of Horseshoe Canyon gave no clue of the gaping Green River canyonlands that lay beyond.

Horseshoe Canyon

After about a half mile, we arrived at one of the points of interest in the hike: a fossilized dinosaur footprint. The footprint would not have been obvious to spot had there not been a a ring of rocks surrounding it. Many sedimentary layers of the Colorado Plateau were laid during the Mesozoic Era, when dinosaurs roamed the earth and the area that is today the Colorado Plateau was instead sandy beaches, a shallow sea, or great sandy deserts. The Colorado Plateau thus preserves not only dinosaur footprints but also has yielded a treasure trove of paleontological finds.

Dinosaur footprint

Short after passing the dinosaur footprint, we passed a water tank that was used by ranchers in the past who once grazed livestock in the canyon. After the water tank was a stretch of descent across slickrock. The Navajo Sandstone layers that defined the top element in Canyonlands stratigraphy formed series of domes and buttes here that added interest to the landscape.

Navajo Sandstone domes and buttes above Horseshoe Canyon, La Sal Mountains in the distance

Continued descent brought us to the edge of the cliff above the inner canyon. Here, the trail first descended while hugging the walls of the canyon before then taking a sandy ridge down from the canyon walls to the bottom of the canyon. This is the steepest part of the hike- the most difficult uphill during the return hike- and placed us at the bottom of Horseshoe Canyon about a mile and a half from the trailhead.

Horseshoe Canyon

Arriving at the sandy wash of the canyon floor, we followed the canyon south; from here to the Great Gallery, the trail was essentially flat. Around us rose the sandstone canyon walls. The trail danced in and out of the wash itself, often going through stands of cottonwoods on alternating sides of the canyon floor. Soon, the trail brought us to the foot of a high sandstone wall on the left side of the canyon adorned with the first of this hike's pictograph panels. Known as the High Gallery, this panel is indeed high up on the canyon wall- in fact, it's not intuitive how anyone could've painted these as the panel is well over ten meters above the bottom of the canyon. The pictographs show a collection of anthropomorphic figures, most of which have legs and some of whom have arms, differing slightly from the limbless figures at the Great Gallery later in the hike. One of the most notable figures in this panel is a pregnant woman in the bottom right of the panel.

High Gallery

The pictographs here are painted in what's known as the Barrier Canyon Style, which includes a series of rock art sites around Utah's San Rafael Swell and Canyonlands that exhibit similarities in the colors and the forms of anthropomorphic figures. Horseshoe Canyon has the largest and most significant collection of these pictographs- indeed, the name of the style actually derives from the name of the canyon, as Horseshoe Canyon had been earlier named Barrier Canyon. The Barrier Canyon Style pictographs were left by the Archaic culture, an early hunter-gatherer culture in Utah that preceded the later Fremont and Ancestral Puebloan cultures. Paleo-indians were the first humans to inhabit Utah, arriving over 10,000 years ago during a wave of human migration from Siberia in the last ice age. The extinction of ice age fauna in North America brought about the Archaic culture, hunter-gatherer societies that inhabited Utah until about 500 CE.

The next panel of rock art came soon after the High Gallery, this time at eye-level: the Horseshoe Shelter Gallery was on the opposite (right) wall of the canyon and displayed another set of figures, which included a dog. This panel lacked the unsettling, haunting visages of the High Gallery or the Great Gallery.

Horseshoe Shelter Gallery

Horseshoe Shelter Gallery

The trail continued along the sandy bottom of the canyon past Horseshoe Shelter Gallery. The sand made this flat canyon-bottom hike substantially harder that it seemed that it would be: the sensation was similar to walking on a beach, requiring more exertion for flat ground than would usually be expected.

Horseshoe Canyon

A half mile of hiking past the Horseshoe Shelter Gallery brought me to a massive rock overhang on the right side of the trail. An arched alcove was cut into the sandstone walls of the canyon.

The Alcove

Entering the alcove, we spotted the third rock art collection of this trail- the Alcove Gallery. This panel was in the worst shape of the four panels in the canyon: some of the figures had become a bit washed out and part of the panel had been vandalized. Nonetheless, it was interesting for displaying some horned figures quite different from the anthropomorphic forms in the other panels.

Alcove Gallery

This should really go without saying, but it's both against federal law and just morally offensive to deface archaeological sites like these. These pictographs and the other rock art and ruins left by the cultures that once inhabited southeast Utah are priceless artifacts linking us to the past. Don't vandalize or touch these panels- oils from human contact can cause degradation of fragile ancient artifacts.

Past the Alcove Gallery, we continued to trudge another mile along the sandy bottom of the valley. Beautiful buttes and domes above us on the canyon rim, a reminder that this hike isn't just about pictographs.

Horseshoe Canyon

A mile from the Alcove Gallery- and 3.5 miles from the trailhead- we came to the Great Gallery, on the right side of the canyon. This is certainly the most awesome spot of the hike: eerie ghost-like forms floating on the canyon walls, their eyes gazing out from their otherwise featureless faces.

The Great Gallery

This is one of the most significant and best-preserved rock art sites in the United States. Reproductions of this panel have been displayed at the MoMA in New York and the Natural History Museum of Utah. Many of the figures show intricate detail: one of the larger and more notable figures has two sheep painted on its torso along with some intricate patterns. Others exhibit multiple colors of paint in the patterns that make up their torsos, although many others are simply a dark red hue throughout. Most of the figures here lacked limbs, although a unique contorted figure who almost seems to be dancing had arms and legs.

The Great Gallery

The most interesting part of the Great Gallery is a panel of dark silhouettes surrounding an outlined form that's been named the Holy Ghost. There has been considerable scientific research into the age of this panel and a good amount of that research has concentrated on this panel. Some anthrolpologists and archaeologists have pinned the age of the pictographs to the Archaic Period, between 8000 and 1500 years ago, due to the similarities between these pictographs and clay figures that have been found which date up to 8000 years. A more recent analysis based off a cracked portion of the Holy Ghost panel, however, suggests that the panel was likely painted in the first millenium CE.

Holy Ghost panel of the Great Gallery

Regardless, the panel is an extraordinary communication between prehistoric peoples who lived on the Colorado Plateau and the people of today. We spent nearly an hour at the pictographs before retracing our steps, this time climbing uphill back to the trailhead. We saw just one other group on the trail all day.

Be prepared if you travel out here as this area is very isolated. Bluejohn Canyon- a tributary to Horseshoe Canyon- is the remote location where Aron Ralston's arm was trapped beneath a boulder during a canyoneering accident on a solo trip. Ralston survived by cutting his arm off, a story documented in the movie 127 Hours. There's no cell service anywhere nearby, so come with maps and directions and be sure to bring sufficient water and gas. If you come prepared, you'll be rewarded with one of the country's most fascinating and evocative hikes.

Murphy Point

Green River flowing through the Canyonlands below Murphy Point

3.6 miles round trip, 150 feet round trip
Difficulty: Easy
Access: Paved road to trailhead, Canyonlands National Park entrance fee required

The easy hike out to Murphy Point in Utah's Canyonlands National Park ends at a stunning viewpoint over the maze of canyons carved out by the Green River. This is an easy and enjoyable hike that ends with a view that includes a gooseneck along the Green River and recommended for visitors who have a whole day or more in the Island in the Sky District; however, visitors with less time will find that the views of the Canyonlands from the many roadside viewpoints are still excellent, even though none offer quite as good a view of the Green River itself.

I hiked out to Murphy Point during a trip to the Moab area with my mother. This was the longest hike of our day at Island in the Sky, which mostly consisted of very short hikes and stops at roadside viewpoints. From Moab, we took US Route 191 north to the left turnoff for Canyonlands National Park's Island in the Sky District. We followed this road into the park past the visitor center, continuing straight at the junction with the Upheaval Dome Road. We made the turnoff on the right for the Murphy Trailhead to arrive at the start of the hike.

From the trailhead, the wide dirt trail cut across flat grasslands covering the mesa top of Island in the Sky. Looking back to the east, there were views over the grasslands to the peaks of the La Sal Mountains. The trail descended very gently and reached a junction after a half mile. The Murphy Point Trail heade right, while the trail descending to the White Rim led to the left. We took the right fork to continue towards Murphy Point.

La Sal Mountains rising over grasslands of Island in the Sky

The terrain changed after we passed the junction: the trail emerged onto a low crest of a protruding part of the mesa, which was dotted with juniper and pinyon pine. Some nice views emerged as the cliffs of Island in the Sky became visible, along with Junction Butte and the Abajo Mountains to the south.

Junction Butte and Island in the Sky

The trail descended gently along this crest, punctuated by a short and low-grade uphill, as it headed west along the protruding arm of Island in the Sky towards Murphy Point. The path dropped across a varying terrain of slickrock and sand and eventually arrived along the rim of Island in the Sky. Here were the first good canyon views of the hike, showcasing the canyonlands to the north: the great, flat plain of Soda Springs Basin extended between Murphy Point and Candlestick Tower to the north, broken only by one narrow canyon sliced into the White Rim. A number of Navajo Sandstone outcrops rose above the Kayenta Sandstone defining the Island in the Sky mesa, the last remnants of a geological formation that has otherwise been fully eroded in the park.

Island in the Sky

The trail then leaves the rim again and enters its last stretch, which oddly enough cuts to the south and then abruptly ends at the southwest edge of Murphy Point. The view here is of course very beautiful, encompassing Junction Butte, the Maze, and the Needles, but it doesn't overlook the great bend of the Green River, which is what everyone hikes out here to see. The best overlook here is a little further on past the end of the trail.

Green River Canyonlands and Candlestick Tower

From the end of the trail, we turned north (sharply to the right, almost back in the direction we came from) and followed faint social paths across the mesa until reaching the westernmost edge of Murphy Point. Here was the true viewpoint: below us lay the winding Green River, which forms a dramatic gooseneck as it wraps around a rock structure of the White Rim Formation known as Turks Head. Kayenta Sandstone walls defined the opposite wall of the Green River Canyonlands with Cleopatra's Chair, a notable block of Navajo Sandstone, sticking out above the opposite rim. The Henry Mountains were visible even further in the distance, a range so remote that they were the last mountain range in the contiguous United States to be named.

Green River below Murphy Point

This view encompasses the heart of the Canyonlands. The Needles District was visible to the south and the Maze was visible to the west: this is one of the few spots where casual visitors can observe the labyrinthine canyon complexes of the Maze, which remains one of the most remote and wild landscapes in the United States. Gazing towards the Maze, I spotted a small number of dark-colored buttes rising above that landscape that seem to be the Chocolate Drops, a notable set of rock towers in that part of the park. Access to the Maze District is a full day's drive on 4WD high clearance roads from Moab and there are few hiking trails; the canyons are said to be as confusing and disorienting as their name suggests.

View over the White Rim to the Maze

There was a gentle uphill on the return. Overall, this was an easy and excellent hike leading to a beautiful view of the Canyonlands and in particular of the Green River.

Gooseneck Trail (Canyonlands NP)

Colorado River cutting through the Canyonlands

0.8 mile round trip, 100 feet elevation gain
Difficulty: Easy
Access: 4WD high clearance road access to trailhead, Canyonlands National Park entrance fee required

A short walk off the car-eating 4WD White Rim Road in Utah's Canyonlands National Park is one of the most spectacular viewpoints along the length of the Colorado River's extensive canyonlands. At the end of the Gooseneck Trail lies a viewpoint over a sweeping bend in the mighty but peaceful Colorado River, surrounded by soaring desert walls and buttes. Only approachable by very rough 4WD high clearance vehicle roads, this overlook sees only a fraction of the visitors that crowd Deadhorse Point State Park or the Canyonlands Island in the Sky above. The hike is short and the drive is long, but if you have an appropriate car to handle these roads you shouldn't miss it. Come around dawn or dusk to experience this absolutely superlative landscape in dramatic golden lighting.

I hiked this trail during a November visit to Moab with my mother. There are two approaches to reach this trailhead and we ended up covering them both. The first is to descend the Shafer Canyon Road, a switchbacking 4WD road from the Canyonlands Island in the Sky District; the other is to take the long, dusty, and bumpy 4WD Potash Road from Moab along the Colorado River. These two can be combined with the US 191/Hwy 313 approach to Island in the Sky to form a driving loop, which I highly recommend if you have a vehicle suitable for driving it and the experience to tackle it.

From Moab, we took US Route 191 north to the left turnoff for Canyonlands National Park's Island in the Sky District. We followed this road into the park and spent the day in the Island in the Sky District; in the afternoon, we left via the Shafer Canyon Road, which leaves from the east side of the main park road just north of the visitor center. The Shafer Canyon Road is an absolutely spectacular and hair-raising driving descent down a canyon via a narrow, switchbacking, cliff-hugging 4WD dirt road. We drove slowly to manage the difficult road and to enjoy the awesome scenery and took our time to reach the junction of the Shafer Canyon Road with Potash Road and White Rim Road. Here, we headed straight and took White Rim Road, a long 4WD road that explores much of a middle layer of the Canyonlands- the White Rim- surrounding Island in the Sky. We followed White Rim Road for about two miles until we reached the trailhead for the Gooseneck Trail, which was marked with a sign by the road. There was enough room near the road by the trailhead to pull off and park.

Shafer Canyon 4WD Road

If you're arriving from Moab via Potash Road, simply take US Route 191 north from Moab across the Colorado River, turn left onto Potash Road, follow that road until it meets White Rim Road, and then arrive at the trailhead two miles after that.

From the trailhead, the trail starts in red dirt but soon moved onto the hard sandstone that defines the White Rim Formation of the Canyonlands. The trail winded through open, rocky terrain punctuated with low desert shrubs that offered plenty of views of the high-walled canyon cathedral around us. The soaring buttes and ramparts of Island in the Sky towered above. Cairns led us across the rock with a gentle ascent until we reached the rim of the canyon.

Buttes of the Utah Canyonlands

The Colorado River wrapped around a beautiful, curving bend beneath us, perhaps the most famous gooseneck of the Colorado after Arizona's Horseshoe Bend. Another sky mesa rose in the distance on the other side of the canyon and the La Sal Mountains were visible even farther back. We were all alone, experiencing an overwhelming sense of awe in this unbelieveable landscape by ourselves. Beneath us, we realized that the rock layers underlying the White Rim Formation were eroding faster, leaving mushroom-like rock sculptures under the cap rocks of the White Rim Formation, the sort of bizarre and otherworldly shapes that become commonplace on the Colorado Plateau.

Colorado River Gooseneck

Canyonlands

La Sal Mountains rising over the Colorado River and the Utah Canyonlands

What more can I say? The Colorado Plateau is one of the most unique landscapes in the world and this overlook over the Colorado River is one of the great views of the Colorado Plateau. The scenery here rivals that of the Grand Canyon.

Ridley Scott thought so as well when shooting Thelma and Louise, choosing a viewpoint along Potash Road just further upstream along the gooseneck from this overlook as the setting of the movie's dramatic final scene, when the two women drive into what's billed as the Grand Canyon. After my mom and I finished soaking in the amazing views at the end of the Gooseneck Trail, we drove back to Moab via the Potash Road, stopping at the Gooseneck Overlook along the road to take a last glance at the stunning canyons of the Colorado as the sun set.

Colorado River views along Potash Road

The hiking to reach this viewpoint is easy but the driving is hard; it's worth it for some of the most incredible scenery of the Utah Canyonlands.