Dead Horse Point State Park, Utah

Dead Horse Point

Dave wrote about the history of Dead Horse State Park on his blog yesterday.  Click here to read it.  Basically, years ago, cowboys rounded up wild horses and corralled them, but didn't get back to rescue them, so the horses died of thirst.  We visited the state park on our way to Canyonlands.  The two parks are very close to each other.  We checked out the campground at Dead Horse Point, which looked like a very nice, typical state park campground with some spacious sites.  They had electric hookups for $20 per night. 

On our way to the state and national parks, we saw the Monitor and Merrimac rocks.

Another interesting rock formation near the Monitor and Merrimac rocks.

After we followed sixteen rental Jeeps into Dead Horse State Park, we went to the visitor's center, and then on the 1/4 mile nature trail.  As Dave wrote in his blog, that trail led us to the Point Trail, and silly us, we started walking on it, thinking it was a 1/2 mile trail.  No, it was three or more miles, and then all the way back!  And the footing was not good on this trail.  Again, it started out easy but then got much harder.  We didn't have our walking poles with us because we didn't realize we were going for a hike.  We didn't hike all the way out to the Point, but later drove out there in the car.

While at the Point, we saw the neck of the Colorado River. 

One thing we saw along the path during our hike was cairns that people had placed along the way, partly to mark the trail and partly of their own making. 

One of the cairns we saw.

Hole in a rock.

A lonely red wildflower.

Today Dave played golf and I explored the town of Moab.  I discovered a park next to the Mill Creek Parkway multi-use path, so I went for a walk on the path.  Later this afternoon, Dave and I drove to this park with our bicycles, and rode them on the path. 

One of several bridges over Mill Creek.

Percussion instruments in the park.  What a great idea!