Dead Horse Point State Park

Dead Horse Pint State Park is the signature State Park in Utah.  Pictures of it are on the cover of the State Park brochure, and prompted us to include it on our itinerary of southern Utah.  It did not disappoint. As a matter of fact, we ended up returning to the park for a second day of sight-seeing.

The plateau becomes the floor of the next step of the canyon

Colorado River "gooseneck" : 180 deg turn in the river

The name is derived from a legend surrounding the origin of the area: namely that early ranchers gathered up wild horses and corralled them on the point, 2000 ft above the Colorado River, broke the ones they could, and left the others to fend for themselves (presumably to find their own way down off the mesa) which inevitably didn’t end well for the horses, who for the most part died of starvation, not able to navigate their way off the plateau.

It looks like I'm superimposed on a mural!

Note the road in the canyon floor; popular with 4WD enthusiasts

Despite the gruesome legend, the views from the point are amazing.  John commented that it was his first glimpse of the Colorado River and he enjoyed the stratigraphy in the canyon walls and the lovely views of the river.  For my part, it is the deepest canyon I have ever seen, and it is GORGEOUS. 

The first day we visited (Wednesday, March 22nd), the sky was hazy so the colours were muted, but we hiked the 4-1/2 mile rim overlook trail and looked in 3 different directions from various overlooks.

There is a potash operation in the canyon bottom with evaporating pools to create potassium chloride for fertilizer.  Blue dye is added to the water to aid in evaporation, and it makes for vivid water views!

John, putting my new Utah tires on my bike!

We returned to the Park 2 days later (Friday, March 24th) to do some mountain biking. I blew a tire in Kodachrome State Park a while back, and John noticed that the sidewalls on my tires were shot, so we bought new tires in Loa, UT (near Torrey) and I'm excited to say I'm biking on Utah tires!  John fixed the blow out in my inner tube and put on my new tires so I could enjoy Dead Horse Point State Park, and my new tires ROCK! They are so bouncy!!  The new ones are thicker (wider) than my old ones, but they are not nearly as big as the ones that we're seeing around us!  A lot of mountain bikers around here are on "fat tires" (the biggest I've ever seen) which likely helps them in the deep sand.

It was so fun to go mountain biking again!  I have to say the trails in Dead Horse Point are the most challenging I have done in over 15 years!!

We had gorgeous views of the La Sal mountains, which had a dump of snow on them yesterday (Thurs March 23rd) while it was raining in the lower elevations.

La Sal mountains, with fresh snow on them

This is entirely different mountain biking than we do in Alberta!  The trails are across slick rock, UP (!) slickrock, following cairn markers like we've been doing in our hikes (because you're on rock faces and there are no tire tracks!)

And then you're in SAND! I mean DEEP sand!!!!  It sucks the tires right in.  It's like cycling on Malibu Beach... except it's orange.

John commented that the views are spectacular, and this is cycling that we can't do in Alberta... the terrain is so varied.

What a terrifically fun day we had... and the weather could not have been more perfect.