HIKING HAPPENINGS - November 2024

On a cool weekday morning, I drive north up Main/US 191, turn west onto SR-313, pass among the great walls of Sevenmile Canyon, then cut through the grasslands and pass the turnoff to Dead Horse Point State Park. I continue south on Island in the Sky Road past the Visitor’s Center and follow serpentine curves to the parking lot at the very end. My goal is the breathtaking Grand View Point Overlook. It’s not that the view itself is grand (though it is!), but also that, until 1921, the Colorado River north of its confluence with the Green River was called the Grand River. So, it was more properly the Grand River View Overlook. Actually these days you can barely see the river from this overlook because it has cut so deeply into the landscape.

Surprisingly, it’s very possible that you’ve already had your first view of Grand View Point—or an interpretation of that view—in a bank. Our Wells Fargo bank! On the bank’s north wall is a huge oil painting by German-American artist Louis Heinzman (1905–1982). Later in his life, Heinzman studied at BYU, then settled in Salt Lake City and began painting throughout Utah. A contractor in line at the bank with me one morning estimated the work as 16 feet long and six feet high. Perhaps this masterwork will whet your appetite to go see the real thing.

About 12 twisty miles past the visitor center, I park in the lot, newly expanded this summer, and proceed the 300 feet of pavement to the overlook railing. On this particular breezy morning, the panorama is thinly clouded in a smokey blue-grey wildfire gauze, “probably from northern Utah and southern Idaho fires,” according to a clerk at the Visitor’s Center. Now I turn right (west) onto a dirt spur trail. This is where the protective railing stops, and the footing gets a little gnarly. I descend the chunky sandstone steps, a bit strenuous for the man in front of me who’s recovering from knee replacements and for my short legs. The elevation here is also 6,000 feet, that’s 2,000 feet above Moab. After the steps, blocky cairns direct me among boulders and junipers to the edge of this southernmost part of Island in the Sky.

Views to the east encompass Monument Basin, with its fractures, columns, and walls, and the La Sal Mountains. To the south, the Abajo Mountains set off the Needles District’s sculpted rocks and spires, while to the southwest is the Maze District’s labyrinth of sandstone fins and knobs. I choose a smooth, flat slab for a couch and break out my modest breakfast of applesauce and a muffin. And, as with many overlooks, I glance behind me to view some different gorgeous scenery: jumbles of red, cream, and ochre rocks, stands of juniper and single-leaf ash, and healthy clumps of Mormon tea and blackbrush.

Canyonlands was established as a national park in September of 1964, so Happy 60th, Canyonlands! But indigenous peoples have migrated throughout these canyons for the last 10,000 years, including nomadic hunter-gatherer groups, Ancestral Puebloan hunters, and farmers who raised corn, beans, and squash. Modern Native American tribes descended from these groups continue their relationship with these lands today.

Now back to my car, I sink back into the seat and drive the spectacular route back down to Moab. If you’re a passenger on this journey, it’s time to thank your driver. Keep the noise down, play their favorite music (or maybe play no music), and perhaps spread some Ritz crackers with peanut butter and pass them up. Whether it’s a car, Jeep, van, RV, or tour bus, your driver deserves appreciation. This is the west. Distances are vast, and driving is part of the visitation bargain. But the payoff is sensational, and the view from the point is quite wonderfully grand.