Canyonlands National Park--Needles District, Utah

    Wooden Shoe Arch in Canyonland Needles area

We went on a drive in the car to the Needles District of Canyonlands National Park.  Canyonlands is divided into three districts, Island in the Sky, where we went on Wednesday, the Maze, which is inaccessible by car, and Needles, which we visited today.  It's less accessible than Island in the Sky, but was worth a visit. 

As usual, interesting rock formations appeared before we even entered the park.

After going to the park's visitor center and watching the movie, we ate our picnic lunch and then set off to see the park and to go on some of the easy hikes.  First we went on the Cave Springs trail.  We saw the area under a cliff which cowboys used to use as a shelter for themselves and for their horses.  Then we reached an area which contained Anasazi petroglyphs.

Cowboy relics along Cave Springs trail

One of several petroglyphs

Some people are much more daring than we are!

We did not climb up to the top of this rock, which was reachable by climbing two ladders.  I don't have too much trouble going up, but coming back down is another matter.  Better to be safe than sorry!

Then it was on to Potholes Point trail.  Potholes are depressions that fill with water when it rains (which it did last night) and small creatures can be seen in the pothole.  The rocks are known as slickrock and are walkable, but you have to watch your footing so that you don't twist your ankle. 

One pothole with water, one partly dry

View from the Potholes slickrock

After driving all the roads in the park, which didn't take too long since there aren't too many paved roads, we went on our final hike (walk) of the day, the Roadside Ruin trail.  This was a short nature trail, with the additional bonus of seeing an Anasazi (oh, excuse me, Ancestral Puebloan) granary where they stored corn, grain, etc.  That was interesting to see.

Granary

More desert wildflowers