“Amazing!” a British voice said next to me. I turned and came face to face with someone I had met a few days earlier while photographing in Monument Valley. I’ve often wondered what the odds are of meeting someone again while on a long trip and this was actually the first time it happened. Sure, we were both tourists but I had the feeling we were also people who’d go that extra mile to find a beautiful photo opportunity and to grasp it. So here we were, standing at Mesa Arch in Canyonlands National Park and marveling at the view.
Canyonlands isn’t the friendliest place to hike. It’s hot, there is little shade and no water. But it has a certain allure to it. There are wide mesas and deep canyons, and the colors change with each geological layer. Due to working with geologists for the past 12+ years, I have an appreciation for the way the earth was formed and continues to be formed. Still, I sometimes couldn’t get my head around the fact that I was looking at rocks that were around 320 million years old. Rocks that were deposited, uplifted and continue to be eroded.
To the east of Canyonlands National Park is Dead Horse Point State Park, which gets its name from a horrible legend I sincerely hope isn’t true. Still, it’s worth stopping at to have a look at the meandering Colorado River.
