Green River overlook
It was quite cool overnight. This morning we drove to Canyonlands National Park, the Islands in the Sky unit, and did a driving and walking tour of some of the nicer viewpoints. It was a beautiful sunny day, though it was never hot.
Grand View Point
We started at the Green River overlook, where the morning light was just right for highlighting the colors of the valley floor, almost 2000 feet below. From here we drove to the end of the road at Grand View Point Overlook, stopping along the way at a couple of other overlooks. At Grand View Point we walked along the rim trail for about 4 km, stopping at many, many beautiful outlooks over the purple tinged valley.
Lunch spot at the White Rim Overlook
Next we drove to Buck Overlook, which I thought was where we’d hiked and eaten lunch last year. It wasn’t. We drove back a couple of kilometers to the picnic grounds, which was where the White Rim Overlook trail starts. We hiked to the end of the point, and stopped at a very nice warm spot below a big rock to eat our lunch.
Mesa Arch
After finishing lunch we walked in to Mesa Arch, and then stopped along the way back at Shafer Canyon overlook. We watched the cars going up and down the narrow winding switchbacks, and one bicyclist who was coming up. He must have been very fit, as the road is quite steep and we saw him ride continuously from the bottom to near the top, where we lost sight of him.