Tuesday, April 26, 2011

The Parks of Moab

Our next stop was Moab, Utah where two National Parks and one State Park awaited us.
 Our first stop was Dead Horse Point State Park.  This afforded us a great view of Canyonlands and the Colorado River.
 We also had a view of some salt ponds where water saturated with potassium chloride and sodium chloride is left to evaporate and the salts are then harvested.  The mountains in the background are the "La Sal" mountains.  Fittingly, la sal means salt in Spanish.  The are sits atop a large deposit of Potassium and Sodium salts, the remnant of an ancient sea.
 This overlook was withing the boundaries of Canyonlands National Park.  We didn't go down into the canyons, it is rugged land and the roads are unpaved.
 The following day we headed to Arches National Park where the features are quite different.  We took several short hikes.
 On this hike our destination was landscape arch.  You can gage its size by the figure in the corner.
We didn't have the blue skies of earlier days but even on this gray, cloudy day the color of the rocks was spectacular.

You can find more scenes of the great outdoors at "Outdoor Wednesday" hosted for us by Susan at A Southern Daydreamer.

13 comments:

Unknown said...

Great and most enjoyable tour!! Boom & Gary of the Vermilon River, Canada.

Joyful said...

Beautiful photos. I could get lost in a place like this :-0

Anonymous said...

Must have felt incredible. Shrinking life it its real, its important size. Thank you for this journey.
Please have you all a good Wednesday.

daily athens

Kathy Walker said...

What an incredible park! I cannot believe the meandering river...beautiful.

Gaelyn said...

Love that rugged red canyon country. Another area I need to return to.

Linda Reeder said...

I love Arches National Park! If you ever return, do the hike to Delicate Arch.

It's Just Dottie said...

I have visited there. Thank you for taking me back.

Light and Voices said...

Oh my goodness this is a park that makes me feel like a cog in the whole system of things. Just lovely. Take care. See you next week.
Joyce M

Katney said...

I could revisit Arches in a heartbeat. There are so many places there to explore.

Sallie (FullTime-Life) said...

We absolutely love these two NPs and the town of Moab. We've been there more recently -- I even have some posts. Our CO son met us there with his Jeep and so we've been down some of those remote trails. Eek. The part we could get to by ourselves (where you went) is spectacular enough. We loved every bit of these parks -- would love to go back; I hope we can someday.

Linnea said...

I've only driven through Moab after a visit to Arches National Park. I thought it was a pretty cool place...lots of photo ops especially when the lighting is right!

Unknown said...

Fantastic! Would love to visit those parks. Great shots.

Janie said...

Arches and Canyonlands have some amazing views. I'm glad you were able to experience them and share the photos!