Postcard from Island in the Sky

The journey from Ephrata, WA to a new home in Tucson, AZ was coming to a close…not because I want the journey to end, but rather because Winter was closing in fast and I was high on the Colorado Plateau. I’ve been on the road for a couple of months, living out of my van (by choice) and seeing news sites on a daily basis.

While camped out at the Arches, I was very near to another National Park…the Island in the Sky portion of Canyonlands National Park. If you have been following this trip, you know I spent a few days in the Needles section of the park. By road, it is quite a distance from the Needles to Island in the Sky. The entrance to the latter is just up the road from the Arches, so one fine morning, long before sunset, I headed into Island in the Sky.

First, I should explain how this part of Canyonlands fits into the whole. The park is quite large, over 527 square miles. Most of it sits down in Canyons. However, Island in the Sky sits high above the rest of the park, and is a broad and level mesa to the in the north part of the park. It sits between Colorado and Green rivers. It could easily be described as a peninsula that sticks out into the main body of the park. It is the smallest section of the park, yet receives the highest number of visitors to Canyonlands…about 60%. Probably because of its close proximity to Moab, UT and The Arches.

While it is very nice, it is not as interesting as the rest of the park, although the views can be magnificent. From the southern end of the peninsula, one can see much of the park, including The Needles. Earlier, when I was in the Needles, I could easily see the peninsula that is Island in the Sky.

The reason I left so early in the morning on this day was to visit one of the park’s most famous sites, Mesa Arch, as seen in the photo above. Seasoned travelers and photographers know that when the sun rises, it lights up the inside of the arch and it positively glows a bright orange…but only for a very short time. There are no photographic tricks in this photo, this is how it looks on many a morning.

Now, I have a confession to make. This photo was not taken on the morning I first visited the park. I took it a couple of years later on another trip. The reason…on my first visit, the rising sun was behind clouds and there was no glow. Although I took some pictures, I could not bring myself to show them here. I wanted you to see Mesa Arch in all its glory.

To get to Mesa Arch, one has to park and hike about 1/3 of a mile from the parking lot to the arch. You should arrive before the sun comes up to set up your cameras. If you do this, you will no doubt find other photo fiends already there and set up, ready for sunrise. On this first visit, there were some Japanese photographers there. One of them told me they were headed back to Japan the very next day. I felt bad for them when the sun came up behind clouds. Like me,they did not get the photo they wanted.

I spent the rest of this day wandering around the Island checking out the views. There is very little to get excited about on top of the peninsula, but the views are great. The best view of them all, besides Mesa Arch, is the Green River Overlook, not far from where the Green River runs into the Colorado River. Sadly, the light this whole day was not very good and my photos did not turn out well. On my second visit, I not only captured Mesa Arch at sunrise, but also the Green River Overlook at sunset.

To see more photos from Canyonlands, please check out my brand new Web page on the park. I have just started working on a new Web site and this is actually the first page I created that is up on line. Many more to come…and if you find a few errors here or there or something that seems out of place on the links, just ignore it. All it means is that I have not completed the new pages for that section.

This first day on Island in the Sky was enjoyable, but soon I headed down to the main highway, then up into the Arches were I was camped. The weather forecast was not looking good…the first snow of the season was not far off. So I had to make the most of my time here before heading south to lower elevations an my new life. But I was not quite ready to leave yet.

More to come…