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There are five National Parks in Utah, including Arches and Zions, which are two of the most popular. But have you heard about the largest and least crowded national park in Utah?
I made this table with all of Utah’s national parks so you can see the comparison between them.
| National Park | Acreage | # of visitors per year |
| Zions | 148,016 | 4.3 million |
| Arches | 76,518 | 1.5 million |
| Bryce Canyon | 35,835 | 1.5 million |
| Capital Reef | 241,904 | 784,000 |
| Canyonlands | 337,598 | 400,000 |
Canyonlands National Park is by far the biggest park but receives less than 5% of the total visitors to Utah’s National Parks. Canyonlands is one of our favorite national parks not only for this reason, but also because of the incredible slickrock benches and colorful rock formations that cover every inch of the park. There is something amazing to see in just about every direction you turn.
As I mentioned before, Canyonlands is a massive park, and as such, the Colorado and Green Rivers divide it into three different sections. These sections are Island in the Sky, the Needles, and the Maze. Here are downloadable maps to each of the districts:
Island in the Sky district is best if you are short on time because it is the easiest district to visit. It is about 40 minutes from Moab. The mesa sits on a sandstone cliff over 1,000 feet above the valley and canyons below. There are many pullouts and hikes along the scenic drive that offer incredible views.
The Needles district is named after the colorful spires that surround the area. There are many longer hikes here that are great for day hikes or overnight backpacking trips.
The Maze district is remote, and all roads are unpaved. The Maze district is popular among backpackers. A four-wheel drive vehicle is required to reach the Maze and your trip may last a few days to a week or more. Many canyons here are difficult to navigate and look similar, hence the name of the district, and you will need a topographic map to find your way.
As of August 2019, Matt and I have officially been to every national park in Utah. Technically, this weekend was our second time to Canyonlands, since for our first time we did a short 0.7 mile hike to Mesa Arch in May 2018. This hike is located in the Island in the Sky district of Canyonlands and ends at a stunning arch that overlooks the valley below. Since Mesa Arch is so short, we decided we would love to come back for a weekend and explore this park further.
Typically, as you may have seen from our previous posts, Matt and I love to travel and adventure with friends. To us, being with other people makes the experience a lot of fun (so definitely hit us up!), but for this trip, it ended up being just the two of us. We love being able to spend so much time together traveling and doing fun things, and this was no exception.
We left home on Friday evening and drove almost 5 hours to the Needles district. On our way there, we made sure to stop at Newspaper Rock. It is a historic monument featuring a rock panel carved with one of the largest known collections of petroglyphs. It records approximately 2,000 years of early human activity. Prehistoric peoples etched on the rock from B.C. time to A.D. 1300. This rock is so cool and definitely worth a stop, especially since it is right off the road and no hiking is needed to reach it.
Since COVID-19 is still a pretty big issue, the park was opening up in phases. Currently the visitors center is closed and the campgrounds are not yet open, which was fine with us because we have a newfound love for BLM camping. I did some research beforehand and discovered a road called Lock Hart Road that is just a few miles outside the entrance to the park and has lots of great BLM camping spots.
To our surprise, we found an amazing spot quickly and set up camp. In our opinion, this camping spot was just about perfect, and for this reason I will not be disclosing the exact location, just know that there are plenty of good spots down Lock Hart road if you are into BLM camping.
The next morning, we got up early, around 6am, and had some breakfast before heading out to our first planned hike for this trip – Druid Arch. You can read about this hike here.
While we were hiking, we experienced some pretty dramatic wind gusts, I estimate around 15-20mph. These winds would pick up the sand that dominates the Canyonlands area and pelt it at our bodies. We were completely covered with sand by the end of the hike. When we arrived back at camp, we took a peek into our tent and were shocked to find everything covered with sand that had blown into the tent through the open windows. We know we will be shaking sand out of clothes, sleeping bags, and the tent for years to come… and we learned a valuable lesson this day… ZIP UP YOUR TENT WINDOWS, FOLKS!
Unfortunately, I have bad knees that will probably require surgery in the future, and because Druid Arch was a longer hike with some significant scrambling at the end, my knees were in a lot of pain by the end of the hike. For this reason, we chose to forgo the hike that we had planned for the following morning, which was hiking to Chesler Park, but we will definitely be doing this hike next time we go to Canyonlands.
Instead, we chose to take a scenic drive at sunset and found a few short hikes with stunning viewpoints along the trail. These were the Big Spring Canyon Overlook and Pothole Point. These both were quick and easy hikes with beautiful views.
We went back to camp, made a dinner of hotdogs, cheddar sausage, and chips, played a round of Skip-Bo, and got ready for bed.
The next morning, we decided that because my knees were in such bad shape that we would just head home a day earlier than we had planned. Had it not been so hot during the day, we would have stayed and hung out at camp. But seeing as it was the high 90’s and very little shade, we decided to pack up camp instead. We would love to come back to Canyonlands in the earlier months when the weather is a little more bearable.
Overall, even though our trip was a little bit shorter than we had planned, the views were irreplaceable, and we had a wonderful weekend just the two of us.
Here is a helpful list of things we love to take with us camping:
- Our large, easy pop-up 8 person tent
- Regular camping chairs
- Our backpacking camping chairs
- A camping table (with BLM camping there are no picnic tables, so this becomes really useful)
- A Go Girl urination device (for us ladies)
- A collapsable LED lantern
- My adjustable hiking poles
If you like this, feel free to pin a photo below!
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