Le Grand Pont (Cinq): Utah National Parks – Canyonlands: Island in the Sky, and The Arches

We left The Needles early and drove around to Island in the Sky, which is the northern part of Canyonlands.

It takes an hour and a half to drive there even though they are part of the same national park, because you have to leave the park at the southern end and re-enter from the northern end. And, as it was spring break, we sat in an hour-long queue to get back into the park.

When we did finally get in, we drove straight to the end of the road to walk to the Grand View Point Overlook. Island in the Sky is well named as you feel like you are suspended in the sky looking south across canyon lands towards The Needles in the south of the park. There are also good views across to the east and the west.

The multiple distinct layers of erosion are a stunning feature of Island in The Sky

To get to the Grand View Point Overlook we walked west along a canyon rim until we reached a peninsula-like head point that provides stunning 270-degree views of the canyons below, through which run the Colorado River in the east and the Green River in the west.

Looking for dinner

Dinner

It was very busy, with lots of Mormon families from Salt Lake City taking advantage of school holidays and the beautiful weather.

In the afternoon we scooted across to the Arches National Park, which is very close by and just outside the town of Moab. Arches is an extremely popular park, and this year they have introduced a pre-booked timed entry system between 7am and 4pm. Having not anticipated that we might have time to go to Arches this day, we had no pass. However after 4pm it was just a matter of queuing to get in. We did two short walks to see the North and South Window Arches and Double Arch. Arches is famous for its picturesque arches but we were also taken by some of the valleys that we drove past, that were bordered by monumental rock formations.