Tag Archives: Island in the Sky District

Jan21

Green River Overlook

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As soon as we paid our camping fee and set our chairs out on our site in the Willow Flat Campground, The Lady of the House and I went out to explore the Island in the Sky District of Canyonlands National Park. We were on our epic road trip through Arizona and Utah, and we didn’t want to waste a minute.

The Green River Overlook was close to the campground, but I drove us there to save time and energy. There was a lot we wanted to see in our approximately 24 hours in that portion of the Park.

After I parked in the lot near the Green River Overlook, but before we got out of the van, The Lady said she wanted to play something to get me in the mood. She had her iPod and speaker prepared, and a song queued up. At the touch of a button, the Creedence Clearwater Revival rendition of “Green River” was blasting. Now whenever I hear that song (and I heard it a lot over the summer because the other clerk played the Sirius Radio Classic Vinyl station every day at work), I think of the moments right before I saw the beauty of the Green River below me.

As I’ve said before, it’s so difficult to describe the beauty I saw on every leg of this journey with The Lady. My camera wasn’t up to the task either. I fear you’ll read my words and look at my photos and think, Oh, that’s nice, without understanding the majesty of all I saw.

I fear all the good descriptive words have been taken. Surely someone has said the Green River snakes across the arid land like a magical serpent bringing life to where there would otherwise be none. I don’t know how to make you understand how stunning the landscape was (I was stunned) or the awe it inspired in me . I do know I could have stayed at that overlook for hours, watching the light play over the landscape. Alas, there was so much more to see, and The Lady and I moved on.

I took the photos in this post.

 

Dec17

Willow Flat Campground

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When we were planning our visit to the Island in the Sky District of Canyonlands National Park, The Lady of the House suggested we spend a night in the Park’s Willow Flat Campground. Sunset at the Green River Overlook was a big deal, as was sunrise at Mesa Arch. Camping in the Park would make it easier for us to get to the viewing points at the appropriate times. Also, living in a major metropolitan area means The Lady doesn’t get nearly enough dark sky. The International Dark-Sky Association named Canyonlands an International Dark-Sky Park, so she wanted to camp there to get a good look at the stars in the heavens.

During early April when we visited Canyonlands, campsites were not reserveable. We were on a strictly first come, first served basis, so we wanted to get there early to improve our chances of getting a site.

When we rolled into the Park, no one was staffing the admissions booth, so The Lady said she’d have to go inside the visitor center to show her Southeast Utah Group Annual Pass. As we went past the admissions booth, we were dismayed to see a large wooden sign declaring the campground was full. We’d woken early and emerged from the van into a frosty morning to eat a quick breakfast and get on the road. Could the campground really be full this early in the day? The Lady said she’d double check on the campground’s status when she went inside to show her pass.

I stayed outside to check the transmission fluid level in my van. The Lady returned to the parking lot triumphant. There was space in the campground! The woman in the visitor center said they never removed the sign that said the campground was full, but that morning they’d received no report that all of the campsites were occupied.

(Excuse me, but what’s the point of a sign that’s supposed to report the status of a changeable situation but is never removed?)

The Lady and I hopped into the van and drove directly to Willow Flat Campground. We pulled in and saw a site that seemed unoccupied. We certainly saw no personal belongings anywhere on the site. There was a piece of yellow paper clipped to the sign pole in front of the site. Upon examining the yellow paper, we found written on it that day’s date. It appeared that the folks who’d stayed on the site the night before were scheduled to check out that morning and had in fact already left. Score! We had our site!

I pulled the van onto the flat asphalt parking pad. We got out of the van and looked around. Was there a camp host we should see? Should we look for a self-pay envelope and an iron ranger?

Across the paved road that ran through the campground, an elderly couple was bustling around on their campsite. They seemed to be packing up, so I supposed they could tell me the process to go through to pay for a campsite.

Hello! I called out to them, or perhaps I said, Excuse me, as I walked into the street and approached their site. Is there a camp host here? I asked once I had their attention.

A what? they both asked, not quite in unison.

I thought the problem was one of hearing, so I repeated, A camp host? a bit louder.

A what? they both asked again in utter confusion.

A camp host, I said once again, then added, the person you pay for your campsite.

You pay with an envelope, the old man said, pointing. He and the woman continued to look at me as if I were a very strange person using an obviously fabricated term to confuse them. How was it possible they’d never encountered the term “camp host”? Was this their first camping trip? Obviously, not every campground has a camp host, but these people seemed unaware of the very concept. However, they had answered my question about where to pay, so I thanked them and moved on.

The Lady and I walked in the direction the old man had pointed and found self-pay envelopes and the iron ranger.

Our campsite in Willow Flat Campground

The camping fee was $15, as expected from what we’d read online. For our money we got clean pit toilets with toilet paper, trash cans, a flat space to park the van, a fire ring, and a picnic table under a shade structure. The grounds of the campground were very clean and well-maintained.

When The Lady and I read the information boards near the iron ranger, we learned about the procedure for disposing of grey water. We were either supposed to strain all food out of wash water, then sprinkle the de-fooded water on the road or dispose of nonstrained water by pouring it into one of the pit toilets. I’d never heard of this sort of cleanup, but I suspect it’s to keep wild animals away from campers.  I suppose even the smallest food particles on the ground attracts critters, so this is a way to keep the campground unappealing to unwanted visitors.

After dinner, The Lady and I went to the Green River Overlook to watch the sun set. Unfortunately, the sunset was a non-event, but we were still glad to have our spot at Willow Flat. We were in the van soon after dark, early to bed with plans to rise early for sunrise at Mesa Arch.

 

 I took all the photos in this post.
Dec10

Canyonlands National Park, Island in the Sky District

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We wanted to stay in the Willow Flat campground in the Island in the Sky District of Canyonlands National Park, and we knew we’d have to arrive early if we wanted to make that happen. The Lady of the House and I woke up early on the free BLM camping area where we’d spent the night and cooked a quick breakfast. Other than a young woman camping across the road who let her dog run free with no supervision and didn’t allow the sounds of nature to prevail, our time boondocking there was uneventful.

The Lady and I cooked breakfast, ate, cleaned up, and packed the van in record time. We were on the road by 8:30 and proud of ourselves for it.

We saw beautiful red rock formations on the drive to the National Park. Once again, The Lady’s attitude was you ain’t seen nothing yet, and since we wanted to get a spot in the campground, we didn’t stop to take any photos of the cool rocks we saw along the way.

The ranger booth was closed when we entered the Park, but we saw a heavy wooden sign reporting the campground was full. Dang! We thought. We weren’t early enough.

I stayed outside to check the level of the van’s transmission fluid, but The Lady went into the visitor center to show her Southeast Utah Group Annual Pass and to double check on the availability in the campground.

Oh, we never take that sign down, she reported a worker in the visitor center told her. As far as the worker knew, there were still sites available in the campground. We were lucky The Lady had decided to go inside and ask! Her double checking certainly paid off in our getting what we wanted.

We drove directly to Willow Flat campground and found ourselves a campsite. After dropping the payment of our camping fee into the iron ranger, we went out to explore the Park.

Overlooking the Green River

Our first stop was the Green River Overlook, just down the road from the campground. We could have walked there had we not had limited time to see all the sights. From there, we drove through the Park, stopping at scenic overlooks and enjoying the beauty of all we were seeing.

I’m sure most of us who have experienced the grandeur of nature know how difficult it is to capture that beauty in words or photos. Nothing I can say or show truly expresses what I saw that day. Multiple my Wows and what you see in my photos 100 times and maybe you’ll have an idea of what I’m trying to share.

When we stopped at the Grand View Overlook, we agreed to look over. The Lady remembered the view from her previous visit to that part of the National Park and suggested we walk a ways on the trail. We can turn around whenever we want, she reminded me. While the scenery was stunning, and in the end I was glad we had seen all the sights along the trail, the two mile round trip was more than I had bargained for. I was tired!

Upheaval Dome formation

Still, we pressed on, and I drove us to the parking area for Upheaval Dome where we started the short hike to the place where we could stand and look at the Dome. I suppose taken by itself, Upheaval Dome would be an impressive sight, but surrounded by all those red rocks and deep canyons, Upheaval Dome seemed a bit boring to me. If I went back to the Island in the Sky District of Canyonlands, I wouldn’t bother visiting Upheaval Dome again. If someone put me in charge of renaming Upheaval Dome, I might call it “Yawn Yawn Dome.”

Next I drove us back to the visitor center/gift shop to find out the time of that night’s sunset and the next morning’s sunrise. Sunset at the Green River Overlook was supposed to be spectacular, as was sunrise through Mesa Arch. The Lady and I wanted to witness both.

On the way back to our campsite, we decided to stop at Mesa Arch. We planned to see it the next morning in all

Mesa Arch

its sunrise glory, but I wanted to get a look at it during a regular part of the day too. I was delighted by the view through the arch, and was glad I’d be able to visit it twice.

Once back at the campground, The Lady prepared a delicious dinner for us. She did almost all of the cooking on our trip, and every meal was awesome tasty. Any van trip would benefit from a cook as talented as The Lady.

We left the campground well in advance of the sunset. We drove again, to save time and energy. We needn’t have worried about time; we were plenty early and wrote postcards before leaving the van.

When we approached the overlook, we found a few visitors already there, including a man with a fancy camera on a tripod, and a group of Asian folks happily snapping photos. Alas, the spectacular sunset we were all hoping for was not meant to be. The overcast day turned into an overcast evening, and the clouds obscured the setting sun. There were no beautiful colors and no striking shafts of light. The grey sky darkened to dusk and our chance to see the sun set over the Green River was over.

The Lady heard the fellow with the fancy camera on the tripod tell one of his companion that sometimes there is no shot to get, but you have to be there and be ready to get your photo if the light is right. We were there, and we were ready that evening, but Mother Nature wasn’t cooperating.