Canyonlands National Park - Needles

Tuesday, Sept. 28 - We left Moab this morning and headed to the other section of the Canyonlands National Park, the Needles section.  We passed one arch on Highway 191.

We turned off onto Hwy 211 and drove partway on this road toward the park.  We stopped at the Newspaper Rock, which has petroglyphs and pictographs that go way back, but they have no way of dating the pictures so they really don't kno how old they are.  Petroglyphs are pictures that are "pecked into" the rocks; pictographs are painted on the rocks.  Often they are both.

The drive into the park was 19 miles and it was very scenic.

We found a big parking lot next to a rock-climbing area, so we unhooked the car and left the RV there.  We had considered trying to camp in this park but decided we should check it out before driving all the way in.  We drove back to one campground just outside the park, but it was in the sun and just dirt parking areas.  We stopped at the Visitor Center and had a picnic lunch outside there, then off we went.  Our first "hike" (and only one today) was back to the ruins from and old storage cache where corn, flaxseed and other seeds were stored.  This was a short hike, but the trail was marked on the rocks with cairns.

 There were a few arches in this park.  Here is one named "Wooden Shoe Arch."

We drove to the end of this drive, then came through the campground on the way out.  It was pretty unique, with some campsites right next to huge rocks, but there were very few that we would have fit in.  We took a drive down a dirt road to the Elephant Hill trailhead, but we didn't make that hike.  We could see the "Needles" pretty well on this drive though.

 There was one other campground just outside the park, Hamburger Rock.  We drove around it too but decided it was not for us.  We then headed back to reclaim the RV and leave the park.  We drove on to the next town, Monticello, Utah, and found an RV park for the night.  The price of gas here was $3.29.  As I was paying for our fill-up ($173.09), the attendant told me she thought the price of gas in Arizona is $2.49!  Well, I hope it is, but maybe we should only have put in a half tank if that is the case.  We'll see tomorrow, we should make Arizona tomorrow I think.  We are planning on going to Chinle and seeing if we can get a tour of Canyon de Chelly.