Canyonlands National Park ⓘ

Canyonlands has been home to people for over 10,000 years. Traditions and ways of life developed and changed as cultures interacted with each other and the landscape. People moved and migrated. They communicated stories and passed on knowledge. Canyonlands is a living, dynamic cultural landscape that many still call home today.

American Indians Humans first visited Canyonlands over 10,000 years ago. Nomadic groups of hunter-gatherers roamed throughout the southwest from 8,000 BCE to 500 BCE (Before Common Era). Ancestral Puebloans thrived: farming and living in what is now Canyonlands. The descendents of these groups―modern day Native American tribes, continue their relationship with this landscape.

Non-Indigenous Settlement and Exploration For early explorers, Canyonlands offered more of an impediment to travel than a destination.

Miners & Ranchers From the 1880s to 1975, local ranchers used much of Canyonlands for winter pasture. Cowboys searched the canyons for good feed and water.

Park Founders In the 1950s and early 1960s, Arches National Monument Superintendent Bates Wilson advocated the creation of a national park in what is now Canyonlands.

An archive is a collection of documents, records, and other materials that are created or received by an organization, family, or person, and kept permanently. Archives are also a physical place for gathering firsthand facts, data, and evidence from primary sources. Some of the primary sources commonly found in archives include:

The National Park Service archives collects and preserves permanent records vital to the function and mission of the NPS. These records are valuable for many purposes:

Though most of the materials in the archives came from the park itself, NPS also accepts collections donated by organizations, persons, and families directly related to the history of the parks.

The Canyonlands National Park archives preserves information related to archeology, geology, history, wildlife habitat, plant life, hydrology, and more as part of the NPS mission.

Anyone interested in using the park archives can request to use the collections on weekdays. Access is by appointment only. We lack the space to accommodate more than one researcher at a time for the four parks we manage. If you are interested in using the archives, you will need to read, fill out, and return the following forms to the archivist:

To request scans of documents or photographs, please read the Interim Duplication Services [171k PDF] guidelines and fill out and return the form.

Finding aids are guides to finding information in an archival collection. They are similar to a catalog or a book index, but finding aids can be quite a mystery to even an experienced scholar. Most researchers should read secondary sources and other background material before looking for primary sources and evidence in an archive. Before requesting material, it is important to know what you need and what type of material may have the information you are seeking. You may use the finding aids below to determine if we have information you are interested in viewing. We have more finding aids offline, therefore it is best to email us if you do not find what you are looking for. After you email us, the archivist will conduct a reference interview with you. This is a conversation to determine your information needs and purpose, to guide you to appropriate tools, and to help you identify relevant resources. Be sure to discuss your research questions; the archivist may be able to tell you exactly where to find the evidence you seek.

A Conversation with Bates Wilson Bates Wilson was the first superintendent of Canyonlands which, along with his role as chief advocate for the park’s creation, earned him the title of “Father of Canyonlands.” In this 1967 interview, Bates discusses his lobbying efforts and many of the management issues facing the newly created park.

The River Journals of Black George In the summer of 1956, Black George Simmons was lead boatman on a USGS mapping trip down the Green River (Stillwater Canyon) and Cataract Canyon. He kept a journal on the trip and graciously provided the park its contents as well as many photos.

Kent Frost During the 1950s and 1960s, Kent Frost led tours into what would become Canyonlands. Combining a passion for exploration with a desire to share his experiences, Kent helped reveal this area to the world.

Stewart Udall and the creation of Canyonlands As Secretary of the Interior in the 1960s, Steward Udall championed the creation of Canyonlands National Park. During a visit to Grand View Point in the summer of 2006, Udall revealed many highlights in the story of how Canyonlands came to be.

Canyonlands has been home to people for over 10,000 years. Traditions and ways of life developed and changed as cultures interacted with each other and the landscape. People moved and migrated. They communicated stories and passed on knowledge. Canyonlands is a living, dynamic cultural landscape that many still call home today .

From about 8,000 BCE to 500 BCE, extended family groups roamed nomadically throughout the southwest. Dependent on game and wild plants for their survival, they made “seasonal rounds” throughout their territory seeking what resources allowed them to thrive. Some evidence remains of these hunter-gatherers, including the extraordinary images they made on rocks and canyon walls. Their pictographs (rock paintings) and petroglyphs (rock peckings), like those found in Horseshoe Canyon, can be seen throughout the park.

Roughly two thousand years ago, some hunter-gatherers acquired domesticated plants through trade networks. This led to a farming culture and more sedentary lifestyle. They grew maize (corn), beans, squash, and supplemented their diet with small game, and seasonal nuts and seeds. Archeologists call two groups of these early farmers the Fremont-era people, located around central Utah, and the ancestral Puebloans, located primarily farther south. Though the two groups’ territories overlapped, they retained distinct cultural differences. Over time, clan-based villages grew into larger communities of hundreds of people. By 1200 CE, people living in Canyonlands were thriving. The land provided everything needed for living: farming, gathering, sport, ceremony, and medicine. The many structures and artifacts that are still visible today, like in Salt Creek Canyon, testify to this deep indigenous heritage.

Around 1300 CE, many ancestral Puebloans migrated south into what is now Arizona and New Mexico. Modern day Native Americans who descended from these people share stories recounting this pilgrimage as something they were destined to do. Archeologists suggest that a drought from 1276 to 1299 also played a role in this migration, as it made farming difficult. While most descendants live farther south now, this region still holds importance as their ancestral homeland. Some sites, such as Cave Spring in The Needles, retain sacred significance, and park staff attempt to manage these sites in accordance with tribal traditions and knowledge. In contrast, the Fremont-era cultures appears to have adapted to the changing climate by returning to hunting and gathering. Local Ute and Paiute cultures, in part, developed from Fremont-era and ancestral Puebloan societies, as well as through immigration from the north. Many Ute believe they are descendants of the Fremont-era farmers, and other Tribes living in the area also maintain that they have always been here. The Navajo, or Diné, immigrated to the four corners area from the north around 1300 CE or so. By the late 1500s, the Navajo and Ute had adopted the use of horses from Spanish settlers, changing their lifeways. Petroglyphs of horses illustrate this cultural shift.

The NPS acknowledges, with respect, that Native people have been successful stewards of the land within the park since time immemorial. The NPS understands that the park is located within the ancestral and traditional homeland of the:

Hopi Tribe Kaibab Band of Paiute Indians Navajo Nation Ohkay Owingeh Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah Pueblo of Acoma Pueblo of Isleta Pueblo of Jemez Pueblo of Laguna Pueblo of Nambe Pueblo of Picuris Pueblo of Pojoaque Pueblo of San Felipe Pueblo of San Ildefonso Pueblo of Sandia Pueblo of Santa Ana Pueblo of Santa Clara Pueblo of Taos Pueblo of Tesuque Pueblo of Zia San Juan Southern Paiute Santo Domingo Pueblo Southern Ute Indian Tribe of the Southern Ute Reservation Ute Indian Tribe Ute Mountain Ute Tribe White Mesa Ute Zuni Tribe of the Zuni Reservation

People People have visited what is now Canyonlands National Park for over 10,000 years. Over time, many different groups have moved in and out of the area in concert with the availability of natural resources and the technology for exploiting those resources.

Places The many groups of people who traveled through the Canyonlands area left evidence of their presence. Many structures and rock markings remain in the park today. Preserve your heritage by not entering archeological sites or touching or marking on rock art panels. Learn more tips on how to be a good visitor at archeological sites .

Stories The rich and colorful history of Canyonlands is perhaps best told by the individuals who witnessed it. As told by cowboys, scientists, park rangers, and former government officials, these stories paint vivid pictures of canyon country and all the characters that have called it home.

Archives What is an archive? Find out how to search for information in archives and discover what we have at the Canyonlands National Park Archives.

For early European explorers, the maze of canyons found here seemed impenetrable. Settlers looked to indigenous people, whose navigation routes were economically important on a regional scale, and even considered sacred. A major north-south trade route crossed the Colorado River near what is now Moab. This route was the basis for the “Old Spanish Trail,” which remains a well-travelled route to this day.

The first Europeans to explore the heart of Canyonlands were likely trappers searching western rivers for beaver and otter in the early 19th century. The Macomb expedition of 1859 saw the pinnacles of The Needles while exploring just northwest of there. Perhaps the most famous explorer of the region was John Wesley Powell, who led the 1869 expedition from Wyoming down the Green and Colorado rivers, and through the Grand Canyon in Arizona. During the three-month trip, Powell mapped the canyons and recorded information about the natural and cultural history of the area, which was published in 1895 as The Exploration of the Colorado and Its Canyons .

In the latter 19th century, pioneers and missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) moved into the Canyonlands area. Most early LDS settlers relied on farming, ranching, and prospecting to make their living.

For nearly a century from the 1880s to the 1970s, local ranchers used much of Canyonlands for winter pasture. Cowboys explored the canyons searching for good graze and water. They constructed trails and roads to move their stock across rugged terrain, such as the Shafer and Murphy trails at Island in the Sky. You can see examples of primitive cowboy camps, like the camp at Cave Spring, throughout the park. Ranching was important business throughout the 20th century in all three districts of the park, and continued for 10 years after the park was created. Today, the Dugout Ranch outside The Needles district continues the tradition, sustainably farming and ranching under ownership of the Nature Conservancy. Roads and trails were also built for other uses. America’s nuclear arms race in the 1950s created a high demand for uranium. Geologists thought that Utah’s canyon country contained a significant amount of the metal, but rugged terrain made access difficult. The Atomic Energy Commission encouraged prospectors with monetary incentives and built almost 1,000 miles of road in southeast Utah. The now popular White Rim Road at Island in the Sky started this way. For the first time, much of Canyonlands could be seen from a car. This, plus the development of the interstate highway system, opened the door for increased tourism to the area, and eventually the creation of a national park.

The 1930s saw a rise in varied interests for the region. The United States Geological Survey and National Park Service both conducted surveys of the area. Early proposals for a national monument were heavily criticized. Throughout the 1940s and 50s, more plans for recreation areas were proposed but never materialized. Opinions began to change in the late 1950s when Arches National Monument Superintendent Bates Wilson advocated for the creation of a new national park encompassing the view from Grand View Point at Island in the Sky. Wilson led government officials on jeep tours featuring lengthy talks over campfires and dutch oven dinners. One recipient of this “dutch oven diplomacy” was Secretary of the Interior Stuart Udall , who returned to congress and lobbied for the proposed park. On September 12, 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed Public Law 88-590 establishing 257,640 acres as Canyonlands National Park. Congress expanded Canyonlands to its present size in 1971, but much of the original area envisioned by Bates Wilson was not included and remains unprotected.

This interview with Bates Wilson first appeared in Western Gateways Magazine - Canyonlands in the fall of 1967 and is reprinted with permission from K.C. DenDooven .

Western Gateways (WG): Bates, how long after reaching Arches National Monument in April of 1949 did it take you to start getting involved in the Canyonlands area?

Bates Wilson (BW): My first view of it was that same spring, from an airplane. It really impressed me. Of course as new superintendent, my first concern was with Arches. But in 1951—again in the spring—I went in on a pack trip with Ross Musselman. We made a base camp at Squaw Springs and then rode over to the confluence of the rivers, the Green River and Colorado River back by way of Cyclone Canyon and Devils Pocket. Then again from our base camp we rode up Salt Creek to The Meadows, and out the east fork to Salt Creek. My son was along, and a cousin from Pennsylvania, who incidentally is a Philadelphia lawyer named [Robert] Deckert. [Robert] was completely nuts about the country, and was the one who named Druid Arch.

BW: It didn't, much, except with us. We were awed by the scenery we saw. There were quite a few archeological sites, too, so I started trying to get the University of Utah to come down and do a reconnaissance, particularly on some sites in Salt Creek and Horse Canyon. Well, they said they didn't have either the time or the money, so then I thought it might be a good project for the kids to go in and at least map the ruins. We started with Horse Canyon and they did it sort of scientifically. We sent our reports to an archeologist's wife at the university to be written up, and that did it. Within a couple of weeks we had two archeologists down from the university.

They made a reconnaissance, and decided to make a dig in Beef Basin, so next year they hired all the kids who had been on the first mapping - - all except my son, who by then was all wrapped up in short circuits (electrical engineering). From that time on, we made repeated trips to The Needles , which was the first area I thought was national park caliber.

WG: You could envision all of this as national park even back in those days—as soon as you saw it?

BW: Oh, yes! And I had been trying to get an official investigation from the Park Service, without much success. Well, it took from 1951 to 1955 to get the investigation. In the meantime the uranium boom had come along and of course some of the greatest activity was in this area, so that sort of put the squash on the idea of a park as far as I could see. My thought then was that it might be declared a national recreation area, so that it would at least be in the national park system.

While this was going on, two Park Service planners came in, Leo Diederich from Washington and Les Arnberger from our regional office in Santa Fe. We were standing on Grand View Point and I asked Leo his opinion on the landscape, and on getting an investigation of The Needles for inclusion in the national park system. "Why stop with Needles?" was his reaction.

"There's the park—the entire erosion basin, from the top of the Wingate cliffs to the level of the rivers." That was when the picture started to clear, and the concept changed from 32,000 acres to a one million acre proposal.

BW: Well, there had been some limited ones. The Park Service had made a recreation planning study of Dead Horse Point and what is now The Island in the Sky . At that time we were urging state agencies to establish state parks and had made investigations of limited areas on the rims. But nothing down below. So where it came, the full survey took in everything, much more than the little Needles area that had caught my interest.

WG: Secretary of The Interior Udall made a trip into the Canyonlands in the early 1960's. Was this an outgrowth of some of this new focus on the area?

BW: Yes, but something else happened in between. Shortly after he took office, The Secretary flew in to address a superintendents' conference being held at Grand Canyon. En route, he passed over the Canyonlands area, and apparently circled several times above the confluence of the rivers. Before delivering his address he sent for me and said, "I understand that you are familiar with the area adjacent to the junction of the Green River and Colorado River?" I replied that I was very interested in it. "What can you tell me about it?", he asked. I said that I'd explored the Needles area on the east side quite thoroughly, and had been trying to recommend it, and that I'd been on the north end between the rivers, but not on the west side. "Well," he said, "this looks to me like a terrific area for a national park."

I hadn't met him until then, but apparently he knew more about me than I though he did. During his speech he said that he "had just been talking to the 'Old Homesteader' from Arches concerning the land adjacent to the confluence of the Green and Colorado." he said, "I've also just completed a flight over the area and I can see two or three national parks right there." At the time the Park Service was starting to encourage its superintendents to recommend new areas because many of our other areas were just getting jammed with people. So he was bringing this out in his talk to the superintendents as a way of recommending the area. From then on, there was real interest.

BW: That's right. It was in July of 1961. The one-million-acre park proposal came shortly afterward, and as you know it was rather warmly debated for a couple of years. The Canyonlands National Park was established on September 12, 1964, but the size was cut back to a little over a quarter the original size.

WG: Are the multiple-use people who opposed the creation of the park pretty well reconciled now to its existence?

BW: Oh, I think so. Of course the size was cut back a lot, and there actually are still some multiple uses on it. One is an oil well on the Island In The Sky.

BW: It could. Tanks usually go in a convenient spot, and the company is usually against moving them. Sometimes they can camouflage them. Then road networks and other things start to enter the picture. Any man-made thing is an encroachment on the natural scene that we are preserving. But suppose a big field did develop. It would be pumped out in, say, 30 years, after which we would require it to be cleaned up and re-landscaped before being abandoned. The thing is, we are not looking at this as a park for just the next fifty years, but forever.

I know of wells in Salt Valley that were put down in 1926 and if you don't happen to know exactly where they were, all that's left is a standpipe sticking up about four feet. But we have to be careful because scars in this kind of country take a long time to heal. We're getting terrific cooperation from the group that has this well. They put their access road right on an old road and all they did was level off the high centers so they could get their trucks in and out.

BW: There are some claims still inside the park, and these people are entitled to access to them, but generally the interest has faded out. The revived market for uranium may cause some development of good existing claims, but you realize no new prospecting or staking of claims is allowed. Just claims that were valid before creation of the park can be mined.

BW: No, it isn't even necessary for them to do that. We recognize the claims even though it hasn't been done. The government does. If these claims were outside the park they would be jumpable, because a lot of them haven't kept up the yearly assessment work. But they aren't jump able within the park because no more prospecting or staking can be done.

WG: The intent of this isn't to relieve the holder of his assessment work requirement is it?

BW: No, not at all! But the reason for the assessment work requirement is to keep the claim valid so that someone else isn't entitled to jump it. Since we protect claims inside the park against new filings, the guy with a valid claim is sitting pretty. He is protected by the park status, and doesn't have to spend his assessment money for annual improvements.

WG: It's been proposed that the boundaries of Canyonlands National Park be enlarged by the addition of certain lands, including Dead Horse Point. Will you outline this for us?

BW: Of course. Dead Horse Point is a Utah State Park. But the state asked Senator Moss to include it in the proposal he made, which was to extend the west side by adding The Maze and The Land of Standing Rocks. The different agencies within the state haven't yet decided whether they want to turn it over to the federal government or not. We're sort of sitting in the middle and would probably be glad to have it if they decide to let us. There are improvements on it and we'd probably have to pay for them.

WG: If the federal government did acquire that particular land, would the use rules apply to it that govern the rest of the national park?

BW: I don't know. Dead Horse Point gives a very spectacular view but the land has a little bit of everything in the way of multiple use: uranium claims, potash leases, oil leases, grazing—which presents problems for us. We can't spend a nickel on land that is under any of these things, so there would have to be some sort of clearing of the multiple use of Dead Horse Point before we could do much for it.

We have to get a right of way from the owner of any uranium claim staked before 1955. Prior to that time the owner had surface rights and could keep even the federal government from crossing the surface of his claim. Now the law reserves surface rights to the government. But even on the valid older claims it doesn't present too much problem because a road across a claim enhances its value. We do have some characters who get advance dope on our road plans and run out and put claims in there. But since the claims are not pre-1955, it doesn't do them any good.

WG: Suppose the Maze area west of the rivers were added to Canyonlands National Park. What can a person do there?

BW: Well, as the name implies it's a complex network of canyons, and it does require a great deal of walking or riding horseback to cover it. The canyons are big, long, and twisting. A man could spend two weeks in there on foot and never cover the whole thing.

BW: The whole enlargement proposal is around 121,000 acres, of which Dead Horse Point is about 21,000. The rest of it would be made up mostly of The Maze country.

BW: You can get by jeep to some overlook points that are terrific. One from near Elaterite Butte, on the north side, is especially wonderful in the morning and evening sun.

WG: It would be hard to administer an area cut off from the rest of the park by the rivers, wouldn't it?

BW: We'd have to establish a district ranger station in the vicinity of course. Maybe at French Springs on top, with a sub-district somewhere near Waterhole Flat. Those are two control points. Water is the big problem.

WG: What is your appraisal of the proposal to construct a scenic parkway along the west side of Lake Powell and through Canyonlands to connect the Page, Arizona area with the Grand Junction, Colorado area?

BW: I think it's good, and one way of letting the visitor get off transcontinental highway to see some spectacular country. Once they get down this way twenty miles they start getting into the red rocks and get interested. Most of what has been done so far is just reconnaissance, trying to figure out what points should be connected, and how to cross the river—if it's feasible to cross it.

BW: No! The first reason is that we haven't found a practical route yet. It would be feasible to go down to Anderson Bottom and cross there with a low level bridge. But from the Orange Cliffs—North Point—a black strip of highway down there on those benches would just wreck the whole setting and the whole view. I think we have convinced the highway department that this is true. And there isn't any way to cross the Colorado River below the confluence without a high bridge of a half or three quarter mile span, with approaches through land we want to leave as wilderness. You just mustn't overdevelop an area. It's pretty easy to take a map and say this is where a road ought to go, but you have to consider whether such developments are going to enhance or encroach on an area.

BW: Taking it from the north, it would start at Colorado National Monument, go south through Glade Park and down to the triangle between the Dolores and Colorado rivers. Then across the Dolores River and down along the Colorado River to the Moab bridge, along the north bank almost to Potash, then out Long Canyon. From there it would swing south on top to within a half mile or so of Dead Horse Point, cross the big flat and tie in to our existing route at The Neck.

Getting across the Green River is the big problem, as I said. Some of the routes would lead so far back north that we would be defeating our whole purpose. There's nothing definite yet, but a chance of crossing at the Bow Knot. This would take out on The Spur and from there we could go south to the west of French Springs, over Orange Cliffs Pass, then either through Sunset Pass or down Apache Canyon back to highway 95 and south over the Henry Mountains on the Bullfrog road.

BW: There are a number of federal and state agencies involved, as well as private interest groups. We recently completed a trip in the Waterpocket Fold area with a group of conservationist people, the Sierra Club, Wilderness Society, Wasatch Mountain Club, and Western River Guides Association to show them on the ground a proposed line for a road across Waterpocket Fold. We had a great number of letters about a plan which was published using a pretty nebulous map, and not one of them had been on the ground, so we made this trip with them to look at the actual terrain.

BW: Yes, I have an office in Salt Lake, manned five days a week by an Information Specialist, and I try to get up there about once a week. All of the state offices and many federal offices are there, and it works out very well as a way of getting things done personally—much more effective than by letter. It's a job with no set schedule, and that often has to be played by ear. A lot of the work is in the field, too—such as the trip I just mentioned.

BW: I can't really say I have a favorite. I think that you can get more intimate with The Needles—closer to it. On the Island in the Sky you're still surrounded by the country but have more of the overview. The White Rim Trail drive is something of each. I think it's all terrific and I can't say I have any preference. The river canyon is also exciting.

WG: The boating aspect of park administration probably poses some unusual problems, doesn't it—being somewhat different than boating on a city reservoir, for instance?

BW: Yes, that's very true, even though great numbers don't run the rapids below the confluence. And we don't have to worry too much about them; they're usually in pretty good hands. We require guides to get permits to run through Cataract Canyon . But on the quiet water above, anyone can put a boat in. It isn't particularly dangerous except for a breakdown or running out of gas. Then they're in bad shape if they're farther down than Anderson Bottom. The reason we have a patrol boat on the river is to take care of such cases. We do want to encourage private boating on the Colorado River side and have put a little road and ramp in to Lathrop Canyon, down off the White Rim. People can start at Moab or MGM Bottom and float down that far and be met. Beyond that point, though, other than Lockhart Canyon, there isn't any way out.

WG: Do you have any registration system for boater protection in case they have trouble downstream?

BW: We're setting one up, and hope we can make it stick. There are so many places for boaters to put in, it's a little difficult to contact them all. I don' think they want to sneak in, they're just not taking advantage of out being there.

WG: Bates, what do you think are the greatest needs of Canyonlands National Park right now?

BW: Circulatory roads, then sanitary facilities. We're getting pressure—great pressure—now to pave the entrance road from Highway 160 into The Needles. We don't want to do this, and it's hard to make people understand why. We don't want to pull throngs of people in, then have to dead-end them. But if we pave it, we'll get an influx that we aren't ready for. We'd rather be prepared to take care of them when they get there.

BW: Chesler Park is the Shangri-La of Needles area. It's the destination. We think the average visitor should see Chesler because of what it is. But how to get him in and out of there and still reserve it in its natural state is a hard problem.

There have been a number of proposals, starting with a two wheel drive road around the inside perimeter of Chesler. This was opposed strongly by wilderness groups, the Sierra Club, etc. Then the idea of stopping traffic at the edge and having people walk from there came up. I think this would cause more scarring than a paved road because the "brown sugar" soil is crusty and fragile, and so is the vegetation. If a guy has a map showing a trail head straight across, he certainly isn't going to walk around the perimeter to get there, and we'll end up with a bunch of sheep trails and a complete clobbering of the vegetation.

BW: If you're aware of it, here's a fringe of trees around the perimeter of Chesler Park, due to the extra moisture that runs down off the rocks. This has also created a perimeter depression—a trough around the outside of the big center meadow. We walked that, placing a jeep, for instance, on the southern viewpoint and one on the northern viewpoint, and any place we came out there was always a natural landscape barrier so you couldn't see the vehicle. And we came out with nice low natural grades, nothing over ten percent.

BW: I grew up in New Mexico—born at Silver City in the southwestern part. My father had gone to Princeton, and since a few uncles and I were the end of the Wilson line, I was supposed to go there, too. They sent me to an excellent prep school in New Jersey, but I found myself scholastically embarrassed, so I came back to New Mexico—Santa Fe area and went into dude ranch work. I'd done some of it before going East. I can remember my paycheck being $25 a month, and out of this I had to pay $5 to board my horse. Well, I finally got a job with the National Park Service as a foreman under the CCC program. We did construction work for eight years.

A lot of our work around Santa Fe was building Hyde Park, a state park north of there. Developing it in the way of roads, campgrounds, water system, sanitary facilities, and a ski lodge. This got me terribly interested in skiing, and when the CCC program ended I went into the ski business with a partner, Ray McAllen, who was an instructor and ski area expert. The only trouble was we were about twenty years too early. About the time things got off the ground, Pearl Harbor was hit and everything turned off.

I had taken the Park Service ranger exam in 1937, so I applied for a job as ranger. About two days before I was to go to Saguaro National Monument the superintendent at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument was pulled into the army. So they put me in there as acting custodian—what would now be acting superintendent.

In West Texas, “Yee-ha!” is an enthusiastic greeting reserved for long-lost friends. In Canyonlands, it means you’ve just met Black George Simmons, expert adventurer, storyteller and NPS volunteer.

Black George worked for the NPS Volunteer-In-Park (VIP) program beginning in 1984. In six seasons at Big Bend National Park, “Yee-ha!” became his trademark salutation (he even uses it to answer the phone). Black George divided his time between Bryce, Canyonlands and Grand Teton national parks, often working year-round. In 1999, he received the Honorary Park Ranger award, the highest honor given to citizens for supporting the NPS mission.

Prior to joining the volunteer program, Black George worked for the U.S. Geological Survey . In fact, Black George’s career with the US government spans over 50 years. In the summer of 1956, Black George Simmons was lead boatman on a USGS mapping trip down the Green River (Stillwater Canyon) and through Cataract Canyon . Below is the journal he kept on the trip.

One of the considerations in planning the 1956 Cataract Canyon Expedition was its expense. Would it be cheaper, easier, and safer to hire a commercial operator, or should we buy, outfit, and run our own boats, or should we buy the equipment and hire boatmen or otherwise arrive at some economic compromise? I wrote letters to Georgie White, Harry Aleson, A. K. Reynolds, Don Harris, Pat Reilly, and Bus Hatch as potential outfitters, to Bob Swift and Moulty Fulmer as possible boatmen, and to Elwyn Blake of the 1921 USGS Expedition and to Doc Marston for general information. In the end, Dick Lewis and Frank McKeown decided that their budgets were far too small for the hiring of outsiders, and the decision was made for the entire enterprise to be a USGS operation. Since I was the only USGS employee who had navigated the canyon, and in fact the only one in Grand Junction who had ever rowed a raft, I was loaned to the project from my drilling and mapping duties at Slick Rock (on the Dolores River) as Chief Boatman of the river expedition.

On June 1st, I commenced a log of activities related to boating, and it evolved into a diary while we were afloat. After the journey Lucille Hooker, the chief secretary for the US Geological Survey in Grand Junction, typed the notes and made 22 mimeographed copies. These were distributed to the members of the trip and to those who had assisted in organizing the voyage. With the collapse of the uranium boom a year and a half later and the dispersal of those involved, the log was soon forgotten.

Some time during the next 42 years a copy of the notes reached the Dan O'Laurie Canyon Country Museum in Moab, Utah, where they were discovered by John Weisheit. John considered the diary important, not because of its penetrating insight or scintillating style, but rather because in aging it had acquired historical value owing to its information regarding the lower part of Cataract Canyon and its rapids which are inundated by the Powell Reservoir. He requested my permission to publish it. I was horrified at what I had written. Much of the text was written sentence by sentence as events occurred, and was disjointed, but this was no excuse for the number of "gets" and "gots" scribed throughout. They alone deprived the document of any sophistication whatsoever. So with many misgivings, and valuing my friendship with John more than entertaining dreams of a writing career, I said, "Yes," and the diary was published in the Museum's Journal: Canyon Legacy, Spring 1998, V. 32, p. 7-15..

June 1, 1956 —Today I am reminded that it is time to complete final arrangements for the forthcoming boat trip. The field work at Slick Rock has been so occupying this summer that no opportunity has presented itself for checking equipment in Grand Junction. The reminder to get busy comes from good wife, Celia. She wants me to make out a will before departing. These trips, whether spelunking, mountain climbing, or boating, always seem to be a source of worry to her. So, I muster up some consoling facts about our three fine boats, which as far as I know are water virgins.

June 24, 1956 —The long silence from Dick Lewis has prompted a trip to his camp near the Kigalia Guard Station in the Abajo Mountains. Sons Clarke and David enjoyed riding Dick Jr.’s horse while Dick, Russ, and I discussed plans. New developments: 1) Departure date set back from July 1 to late July; 2) Food will consist largely of flight rations; 3) the sixth man in the party will be a U. S. G. S. paleontologist.

July 14, 1956 —Saw Sam Pyeatt in the Grand Junction AEC Compound today. He relays the information that Dick has set a July 19 meeting date for the river party in Junktown, and plans to embark July 20. I am to call Frank McKeown by radio at Orange Cliffs, and notify him of the departure date.

July 16, 1956 —No luck in contacting Frank. Radio and quite a few miles of jeeping are his only contact with the "outside".

July 17, 1956 —Frank "radioed" me at Slick Rock this morning, much to my relief, and will meet with the crew in Grand Junction.

July 18, 1956 —Drove into Junktown from Slick Rock, a hot five-hour drive in a gutless jeep. Used the afternoon to purchase assorted odds and ends: salt tablets, bottle of rum, sun tan lotion, swimming trunks, etc.

July 19, 1956 —Spent today checking over the boats. Our fleet consists of three Army surplus 10-man, black neoprene life rafts. Each boat is about 15 feet from stem to stern, and about 5½ feet in the beam. The boats’ principal structure is a tube, perhaps 2 feet in diameter, forming the outer rim of the boat. The tube is divided into two parts by an internal, horizontal diaphragm. In use, each half is inflated equally through separate valves. Should one half become ruptured, the other half contains enough air to keep the boat afloat, and could later be inflated to the capacity of the entire tube.

A neoprene layer forms the bottom of the boats. Inside, the boats are divided roughly into thirds by two seats, which lack several inches of reaching the elevation of the main tube. Outside of the main tube on all sides, save the stern, is an inflatable bumper guard.

Men in the U.S.G.S. shop in Denver constructed wooden seats to fit above the rubber ones in the boat. The seats fit in the frame containing the oar lock assemblage. The latter consists of two 3/8" pins set in holes drilled into the frame, so that the pins form an inverted "V" with a small opening at the apex.

Our oars are top grade ash, have a perfect grain lie, and are nine feet long. They taper slightly from handle end to blade end, so that they can be slipped into the open "V" of the oar locks near the blade, but will not slip out near the handle end.

From today’s inspection it seems that: 1. The bumper guards leak on two of the boats; 2. The bumper guards will have to be tied close to the boats where the oars sweep; 3. There is too much play between the oars and the locks; 4. The oar locks, mounted so as to be equidistant from each seat, are too far away from the seats for me to get a full pull, but should be correct for the rest of the party, all of whom are larger and longer-limbed than I.

Frank arrives early this afternoon. Dick and Russ don’t get in until after work, and with bad news. The U. S. Forest Ranger from Monticello, Utah, will be unable to make the trip due to the dry season in the La Sal National Forest.

July 20, 1956 —What a day! First, Arnold Brokaw badgered me into signing a statement releasing the U.S.G.S. from any responsibility, should some accident be incurred on the voyage. Finally we got another man to fill out the party. About 10 AM Charley Sparks and Alvy Newman departed with the boats, followed by Bill Brueggemeyer and a pick-up load of food, life preservers, pumps, sleeping bags, etc.—a real Okie. Don Wyant set arrangements to pick us up in Hite.

Don and Dick have a long talk about photographs and maps. We tell everybody goodbye and the question we are put to most is: "Will the map tubes float?"

The party consists of: Russ Campbell, Hank Dyer, Dick Lewis, Frank McKeown, Dick Rezak, George Simmons.

Dick Lewis, henceforth to be referred to as Looie, is in charge of the group and is also head of one of the two mapping projects for which the trip is being made. Frank McKeown is in charge of the other mapping project. Russ Campbell, geologist, is Looie’s assistant, and Hank Dyer, geologist, is assistant to Frank. Dick Rezak is a U.S.G.S. paleontologist. He will simplify the fossil collecting and identify some of the Paleozoic strata. I, though a geologist, am along as a guide. Dick, Looie, and Russ work out of headquarters in the Denver Federal Center. The other three have headquarters in the Grand Junction AEC Compound.

We drive to the site of the former AEC Inter-River Camp on the Green River [The Atomic Energy Commission camp known as the Inter-River Camp was at Mineral Bottom. It was one of many AEC and USGS camps in connection with mapping and drilling during the uranium boom] and fail to find the equipment trucks there as expected. However, we are located by Hank Moore who has been jeeping along the river bottom looking for us all day. Hank gives us some air photos covering part of the route.

We drive down the Green for 10 miles to Hardscrabble Bottom, the embarking point. We unload our jeep station wagon. Then Frank and Hank drive off in search of the missing vehicles.

The Hardscrabble Quartet cracks the label on the gin bottle at 6:15, and follows with a quick supper at 6:30.

Looie and I try our luck at poaching a few catfish. Our luck is bad, but the surrounding mosquitoes have a feast. At dark Frank and Hank return, having found the lost equipment trucks. We unload the trucks, and Alvy, Bill, and Charley head back [to Grand Junction] with the vehicles.

We try to rig up the oars with leather bindings, but are defeated by mosquitoes and a faltering Coleman lantern.

Four young prospectors come up the river with an outboard, and dock at "our" landing. One boy has been stranded near the confluence of the Colorado and Green for almost three weeks. He was picked up by the other three who saw his signal fire smoke from upstream.

We turn in at 10 PM—climbing on the Moenkopi ledges above the river, but no escape from the mosquitoes. Looie’s perpetual jokes and good humor promise an enjoyable voyage. The moon swathes the cliffs with silver paint to the un-symphonic drone of the hungry horde.

Saturday, 21 July, 1956 —We all had a miserable night, too hot to stay in a sleeping bag, and too many mosquitoes not to. We are glad to be up at 5:15.

The equipment forms isolated heaps of confusion all about us. We decide to fix breakfast first.

After breakfast everything is moved to the launching site. All are solemnly pleased to see that all three boats float. The Robert E. Lee shoves off with Dick and Looie at 8:00 AM. Hank and Russ follow in the Dixie Belle at 8:20. Frank and I police the area, then cast off at 8:40 in the Jeff Davis .

The boats are all overloaded. Also, all bottom canvases on the boats leak, especially so in the Robert E. Lee . We must wrap the oars today too.

About 10 AM we see a doe fording the river, and offer thanks that we have delicious flight rations and are not tempted to shoot Bambi’s mother.

At 11 AM the White Rim Member of the Cutler Formation makes its first appearance [lower end of Potato Bottom]. This I take to mark the boundary of Labyrinth Canyon above and Stillwater Canyon below [incorrect, the transition is at Bonita Bend].

At 1 PM we meet for lunch at the mouth of Millard Canyon. All have decided that we have too much equipment, and the surplus is cached. Frank can get to the river here with a jeep and retrieve the gear at a later date.

2 PM near the start of Bonita Bend the Organ Rock member of the Cutler fm. crops out. There is small scale interfingering with the overlying White Rim member.

Lots of small Indian ruins are spotted at the base of the White Rim, and at 4 PM we stop to inspect one. Hank and I climb a short pitch to a ruin, but find no evidence of inhabitants other than the dwelling itself.

The larger buildings are made of irregularly shaped slabs set in a durable adobe matrix so as to form smooth surfaces. The smaller ones are not so well constructed, and many consist of rock walls without matrix.

At 5:30 we camp on a sand island in the middle of the river. The mosquitoes start in again, but not nearly as bad as last night.

We decide on a beer appetizer before supper, I draw a Menu #7: Turkey, Pears, and Date Pudding.

We are all tired tonight, especially Looie who got a heavy load of sun while cooling off this afternoon.

Frank swims out to a small adjacent island to ignite a log pile—in hopes that the smoke will hold down the mosquitoes.

Sunday, July 22, 1956 —I crawl out of the sack at 5:15 AM and find myself the straggler—nothing easygoing about this crew. Frank and I load up the canteens with the river water, which settled overnight in the bailing buckets. [Our drinking water was principally obtained from the rivers. We filled our bailing buckets, allowed the silt to settle overnight, and decanted the water into our canteens without treatment. No gastronomic side effects were noted].

It had been my unvoiced idea to rotate partners every half day so as to avoid any possible personal friction which sometimes develops toward the end of a long tiring day, when faces get long and tempers short. The others teamed up so readily with their shipmates and seemed to prefer the boats they started in, that it was deemed best to continue as before.

It is funny how one can become attached to an inanimate object. My old yellow boat, Nicholas Needlefoot , falls into this category. I suppose it is because of the association of so many good times together, along with the feeling of security which comes with learning both your and the boat’s limitations, from handling in a variety of situations.

Well, this morning I felt a preference for the Jeff Davis . Only yesterday morning I picked the least favorable looking of the boats for myself as I thought the others, not having had any white water experience, should have the better of the boats. Now the boat I selected seemed a bit better than the other two.

Frank and I drop behind the others to collect some chert samples from the Organ Rock member. Chert is a uranium mineralization guide in Frank’s area of mapping.

Frank is particularly busy with notes and plotting contacts so I try not to annoy him and occupy myself with binding leather to our oars. The oars are finished, and handle much better than before.

This morning is mostly cloudy and cool. So, the oars get a workout in the new fittings, and we make good time in spite of slow water.

About noon we lash the boats together amid stream and form a lunch raft. We have passed into the Rico fm. And the canyon has become steeper and narrower.

Previously, I had scouted out parts of the canyon from the White Rim on the Inter-River side, but the country we are now traversing cannot be seen from the White Rim. Spectacular as is the canyon above with its great Wingate cliff, it doesn’t compare with the gorge we are now in. One cannot pass through many of the canyons of the Green, or for that matter the Colorado, San Juan, Yampa, Dolores, San Miguel, Gunnison, etc. without feeling the stupendous grandeur of his surroundings and the minuteness of himself.

At 1 PM Frank and I stop to sample and photograph some fossil logs near the base of the Rico fm. The logs are in sandstone above which lie a few thin fossiliferous limestone beds. A few feet below is a section composed dominantly of limestone. Frank places the top of the Hermosa at the top of this section.

A little wind and a little rain cool the afternoon. We finally catch the others at the confluence of the Green and Colorado Rivers—where they are swimming—5PM.

The boats are stripped, hauled ashore, and the hulls swamped off and left to dry while we eat supper. After the meal we check all seams and the hulls for leaks. Looie and Dick find a small tear, which they repair in the Robert E. Lee . All of the boats have small leaks around the mast wells, and operations are decided upon for the wells and keels.

Monday, July 23, 1956 —I wake up about 4:30 AM—beautiful alpenglüen on the cliff tops. At 5:15 I get up and take a few pictures.

After breakfast Frank takes a lot of Brunton readings while I seal the mast well of the Jeff Davis , and try to make things as river worthy as possible.

Looie is anxious to get moving and shoves off at 9 AM. Hank and Russ shove off at 9:45, and Frank and I at 10:00.

From now on our trip will be covered by the U.S.G.S. river maps of 1921, printed in 1922: "Plan and Profile of Colorado River, Lee’s Ferry, Arizona, to mouth of Green River, Utah; San Juan River, mouth to Chinle Creek, Utah, and certain tributaries." Mile markers are printed on the maps starting with "0" at Lee’s Ferry. As there were few named reference points in the canyons until recently, it has become customary to refer to rapids and other things by their location in regard to the mile markers.

We assemble on a shady beach across from Spanish Bottom (Mile 213) to look at some supposed outcrops of Paradox.

Looie is still eager to get moving and reach the mouth of Cross Canyon. I would sooner see the party together from now on. He goes on with Dick after I warn him to look over the 5 th rapid.

This morning we all donned life jackets. They henceforth will be the uniform of the day. Earlier this year on two one-day trips on the Dolores River near Slick Rock all of the jackets were tested and found to function properly.

Otis Marston, Dean of the Colorado River, has devised a system of classifying rapids. In essence, the system rates a rapid from 1 to 10 according to its severity—the higher the number the more difficult the rapid.

In my 6-man boat, Nicholas Needlefoot , I usually run class 1 to 3 rapids without looking them over. Class 4 rapids I check if I’ve not run them before. Last summer on the Western Speleological Institute Marble-Grand Canyon Expedition we used a 10-man boat like the ones on our current trip and found we could step up a class with the larger boat.

We view the first rapid at Mile 212¼ [now called Brown Betty] from mid-channel. Expectation is high as we start down the tongue. The tongue plays out and we get a nice ride on some 3- to 4-foot waves; (Class 3). We quickly encounter Mile 212 Rapid. It has a steeper gradient and more waves than the first rapid. Another good ride and it looks like this Class 4 rapid has confirmed 3 more river rats.

At Mile 211½ we run a Class 2 rapid. At Mile 211 is another Class 2 rapid with an "S" curve and a small rock island at its upper end. We pick the right channel, which is carrying the most water.

The 5 th rapid looks easy from above, but so do lots of others, and we stop for a look. No sign of Looie and Dick.

The left side has some rocks, holes, and rough stuff. The extreme right bank has too many near-surface rocks, and we decide on a course slightly to right of center.

Frank takes over the helm and I ride while Russ and Hank take pictures from the bank. Frank holds a good course and pulls us out in the eddy below on the right bank. We hurry back to get pictures of Russ and Hank.

The Dixie Belle is too far left and misses my signals to pull right. She slips off the right side of the first big wave, but plunges into the hole behind. The second wave explodes under the port quarter, and over she flips. Hard to believe if I hadn’t seen it myself. I am tripping through the boulders, now racing down the beach. I hear Frank close behind. I knock off my hat and goggles as I run. The boys popped up in less than five seconds and the water is calm for a stretch below so there is no physical danger other than the loss of some of our closely calculated grub supply. But the outlook of the dunked is important so we waste no time. I grab the mooring line while Frank jumps in the boat and mans the oars. We reach the Dixie Belle in a minute. Frank grabs her and I take over the oars. I have trouble getting ashore so Hank climbs in and bears a hand while Russ tows from his aqueous position.

The boys didn’t seem to mind the rain and are in good spirits, so I hasten upstream to retrieve the hurriedly left cameras, etc. after helping to upright the Dixie Belle .

When I return Looie and Dick have rowed up from a point 200 yards downstream and across the river. After a little chitchat they set out for Cross Canyon. We eat lunch. The 5 th rapid is at Mile 210½ and I call it a Class 5.

While trying to catch a catnap after lunch a yellow racer gives me quite a start by brushing unexpectedly against my leg. He had a brown lizard in his mouth and continues into the rock pile where he was headed, unperturbed by my shouts.

A Class 3 rapid is at Mile 209½. Big boulders make the right side impossible. There is a cluster of boulders in the center. The best route is just to the right of the center boulders. However, as Frank and I pulled out close to the bank on the left side, we chose to run the thin tongue on that side. The tongue is closely guarded on either side by a hole, but we slip through without difficulty. The Dixie Belle takes the other route.

The Class 2 rapid at Mile 209 is a very pretty one. It has a well developed "V" tongue, Frank takes us straight down the center—we ride smoothly on the gentle swells—the sides of the "V" draw tighter and tighter till we reach the vortex—then choppy water all around us as we pitch on the waves in the main channel.

No sight of the Robert E. Lee above the small canyon upstream from Cross Canyon so we run the broad, shallow Class 1 rapid between the two canyons. We spot the Robert E. Lee , and pull into camp at the mouth of Cross Canyon.

We have a big time joking about the upset at suppertime. It seems that several thousand dollars worth of equipment will be written off to the upset. The actual losses are: Hank’s Brunton compass, 1 cooking kit, 1 first aid kit, 1 200' length of manila line, 1 small tarp, also some of Russ’s air photos got a little damp.

Looie heads up the small canyon to do some mapping. Russ goes up adjacent Cross Canyon for the same purpose. Frank and Hank hike upstream to map. Some luck these guys have: the axis of the Meander Anticline follows the course of the Colorado River, which marks the boundary of Frank’s and Looie’s areas. Faulting parallel to the anticlinal axis can prevent any undesirable features from creeping across the river into either area. What a break for scientific interpretation.

Dick replaces the patch on the Robert E. Lee bumper guard while I load up canteens from the "spring". The spring is actually river water, filtered through sand, and seeping down from upstream.

Everyone is back in camp before noon. Looie found a black, 7-man neoprene boat like the rascal we used on last year’s Grand Canyon trip. I get mixed up on history and paint Monitor instead of Merrimac on the little beast, much to the amusement of the others.

We load the boats and they shove off to a vantage point observing the Class 2 rapid below Cross Canyon. Upon receiving a signal Looie and I paddle the Monitor with boards to the middle of the rapid. We try to upset the boat for the photographers. We grab the starboard safety line and fall to port. In the water we go, but the Monitor won’t flip—so we are foiled.

Russ and Frank have been doing a lot of stop and go mapping today. We pick a camp on the left bank at the upper end of the Mile Long Rapid. From here I can see ½ mile upstream to the site of the first camp Dave Arnold and I pitched in Cataract Canyon, 10/27/52.

Tomorrow will be our toughest day on the river. The talus walls make for poor camping, and the roughest section of the river is here. To make tomorrow easier I decide to scout out the Mile Long Rapid today. Looie comes along.

The Mile Long Rapid is a tricky stretch of water and forms a series of eight rapids at this stage. The 1st, 3rd, 5th, and 7th are easy. The 2nd is not a dangerous rapid in itself, but catching a load of water here might make a boat uncontrollable for positioning on the 4th, 6th, and 8th. The best overall route figured is as follows:

II (Class 4)—Miss the heavier water and hold position by sneaking down the right bank. II trails into III.

III (Class 2)—Go down the tongue and skim the right side of the small boulder in the center and at the end of the rapid. Maintain position by skimming the right side of another small boulder in the center between III and IV.

IV (Class 6)—The entire left side of the rapid forms a comb of jagged rocks out to a big boulder in the center. Most of the right side is blocked by large boulders over which water is pouring into deep holes followed by backlashes. A narrow safe route exists just to the right of the big center boulder. The target is about 10' wide. There are several nice 5- to 6-foot waves in the main channel below the rocks.

V (Class 2) This rapid has two poorly developed tongues—take the weaker left side, and stay left for VI.

VI (Class 6)—The right side of this rapid is the toughest stuff seen so far. The water plunges over two monstrous boulders into mammoth holes—an ideal place for your mother in law—water in the center isn’t much better as it piles through some jagged rocks. The only route is down the small chute on the left side.

VIII (Class 6)—Lots of rocks and holes on the right and in the center, dangerous. There is a safe tongue on the left side, however, entry is guarded by some small rocks which might deflect a boat to the center. So, it is better to make an indirect entry by working through rocks on the extreme left.

Wednesday, July 25 1956 —Originally the expedition was scheduled for an earlier date in belief that a little more water would afford a smoother passage. If the water looked too heavy we could hook the boats together in a raft and overwhelm the river if necessary rather than risk maneuvering or going through the agony of a portage. The water is now not as low as on the 1952 trip, but is too low for raft making, as many passages are too narrow.

Thus far I have been trying Norm Nevills’s psychology of occasionally telling lurid stories of the ferocity of the canyon—so that when a bad rapid is reached the reality is nothing compared to its counterpart in oration.

This seems to have worked to my disadvantage as I think we should line the 4 th break in the Mile Long Rapid and Looie wants to run it.

We pack slowing and carefully and securely. Most of the Robert E. Lee ’s load is stowed in the Dixie Belle.

Frank and I strap on our life jackets and run the Jeff Davis through I, and tie up on the left bank. Hank and Russ do the same with the Dixie Belle carrying the Monitor in tow. The four of us line the Dixie Belle around II. Hank and I decide we can run the left side of II without trouble, and do so, continuing through III and pulling out on the left side above IV. Dick and Looie go upstream and release the Monitor . It hangs up on the left side of the big center boulder of IV. After 10 minutes of pounding it finally breaks through and disappears downstream.

Looie comes down in the flagship on a beautiful run, I through VIII non-stop, as planned yesterday.

Frank and I shove off after stowing cameras and run V, VI, and VII. In trying to thread our way into the left channel of VIII I hang us on a rock. We start to roll right so I jump on a rock with a line, intending to pull us back on course. Unfortunately or hilariously, depending on who you are, I fall over backwards into the river. At this moment we block the passage of the Dixie Belle . Hank tries to hold up the boat by grabbing a rock, gets jerked off balance, and falls into the river. He climbs aboard as Russ misses the guarding rocks and goes through the left chute without difficulty. Meanwhile Frank holds the Jeff Davis against some rocks while I thrash in the water with the line. Then Frank loses an oar. It lodges in some rocks on the left bank. I get to shore with a line and retrieve the oar, hand it out to Frank, pull the boat by line to the spot I was rowing for in the first place, jump in the boat as it passes, and polish the exhibition off with a sloppy handling job down the left side of VIII.

I lose my hat and goggles at VIII, but Looie discovers the goggles floating below and gets them for me.

We proceed to the rapid at Mile 203½ (Class 3½). We look it over then shoot down the tongue into the waves below—good ride.

There is a rock island at Mile 203 Rapid (Class 2½). All boats try the shallow, rocky left side, and all boatmen spend time in the water lifting.

Mile 202¾ Rapids forms a series of three at the present stage. We take a good look then come down the tongue of I (Class 1); start down the tongue of II (Class 3), but pull to the right toward the bottom; III (Class 5) has a narrow tongue, tightly guarded on the left by an explosion wave. We stay right and make a good passage.

"The Big Drop" is the name applied to the two rapids mapped between Mile 202 and Mile 202½. The lower of the two is considered the toughest in the Cataracts. Today the upper rapid forms two rapids. I is Class 4 and has lots of big boulders, but only one hole to avoid. Each boat takes a different route then follows the tongue on II (Class 2).

The lower part of the Big Drop is formed by a nearly solid wall of boulders behind which is impounded a wide body of water. It looks like a plan section of somebody squirting a mouthful of water through his teeth. After plunging over the sharp break the entire center is cluttered with fins, holes, churning foam, etc. Two routes seem possible. A narrow route of difficult entry is on the right side. It has one big hole near the bottom, but the hole is partly shielded by a cushion of water pounding off of a boulder to its right.

The other route is on the left side. A two-foot slot between two big boulders can be used as a guide over the first break as it leads over a series of short fast plunges.

Looie takes Dick as a passenger and tries the left route. The slot is hard to locate from the boat and Looie shifts right and left trying to find the guide. Looie hits the break about 8 feet too far right, and misses the slot. The bow of the boat drops over the break like a limp rag, pivots on the bow and slides on the starboard side into a hole. It looks like she will turn over in the hole, but up she bobs out of the hole sideways to the current. Dick tries to straighten the boat but the force of the water on one oar lifts him off of the seat, then wrests the oar away and through the tight "V" of the oar pins. The lost oar wedges in some rocks downstream from the sickeningly swaggering boat. The boat dashes against a rock, and for a moment it looks as if it will be impaled on the wedged oar. The oar washed free. The boat snakes to the left, sideswipes a boulder, pitches, and then rolls 30 degrees, catapulting Dick into the water. Dick is on the far side of the boat and not visible from our vantage points. Our next view of him: Looie is holding him by the collar of his life jacket with one hand and rowing with one oar. You can almost hear Looie’s, "What the hell ya’ doin’ out there man? You better climb in the boat before you get killed on those rocks."

After shooting four pictures I had worked my way downstream so as to be able to swim out in case the boat turned over. After a few words with Dick and Looie I leave them to bail, and head back to look over the other route.

Frank and I decide the water cushion will keep us out of the hole on the right side. We line the first 20 feet or so of the rapid to ensure hitting the correct course.

Hank snubs the Jeff Davis to shore while Frank and I crawl aboard. The water is very fast, and our sudden start prevents Hank from throwing all of the mooring line aboard and it snags.

Russ is shouting from the bank barely five feet away, but the water is roaring so loud that I can hardly hear him. Frank cuts us free with his pocketknife and we streak into the cushion, spin around the outside of the hole, into a wave below and to the left, and ease into quiet water.

Russ duplicates our route in the Dixie Belle, and also catches on the same rock as the Jeff Davis with the bowline. Russ cuts the Dixie Belle free, hits the cushion, spins around the hole, into the wave below, and all are through the Big Drop.

[Terminology for the Rapids now known as Big Drops I, II, and III has changed. Prior to my first trip through Cataract Canyon I consulted with Don (Laphene) Harris, the veteran of many Cataract Canyon boat trips. Don pointed out the positions of Big Drops II and III on my maps and noted that big drops occurred there. When Dave Arnold and I traversed Cataract Canyon in October 1952 we called these places Big Drop I and Big Drop II, and the same nomenclature was used by our U. S. Geological Survey Expedition in 1956. Thus, we considered today’s Big Drop I and Big Drop II as distinct parts of our Big Drop I, and today’s Big Drop III was our Big Drop II].

In 1921 the U.S.G.S. lost a boat in Mile 202 Rapid. We look it over closely so as not to make the U.S.G.S. a two time loser here. In 1952 the rapid was an easy one. Now it is called Class 4. All boats take the break on the left side, then pull toward the center for fast water.

Camp is pitched on the island at Mile 201. In spite of the busy day we whoop it up with a beach party (till 9:30), telling stories, jokes, recounting the days adventures, and even reading some Robert Service poetry.

[The rapid by the island at Mile 201.0 is now called Ten Cent Rapid. It is at the theoretical head of the Powell Reservoir, the place where the lake would begin when it was at full pool. A few rapids are usually present for 2 miles downstream to the vicinity of Waterhole Canyon. The island is submerged when the river is high.

A few yards downstream from the island on river-left is the site for the fly camp of the Canyonlands River Patrol. This station is occupied by Park Rangers with rescue boats and equipment when the flow of the river exceeds 50,000 cubic feet per second].

Thursday, July 26, 1956 —The party really looks like a bunch of veteran "rats" now: whiskered faces, Looie says mine looks like an armpit, at least I hope it doesn’t smell that way—I hope; reddish brown hides; rotting tennis shoes; wrinkled clothes; etc., but better still the party acts like a good boating group. In the mornings everybody knows what is to be done and does it. There is little talking and we shrink our tiny beachhead into the boats, only an occasional question as to the location of a piece of gear. We could probably strike camp in 10 minutes if we wanted to do so.

The rapids by Mile 201 island are well sealed by rocks on the left side so we go down the tongue on the right side. (Class 3).

We ride the riffle at Mile 200¾, and pullout above Mile 200 Rapids. The canyon is very narrow here. The rapid consists of three closely spaced parts covering more than ½ mile. We run the tongues at the first two parts then pull to the right side of the third (Class 4).

The canyon continues narrow and the water fast. We come to a ¼-mile long rapid between Mile 198¾ and Mile199. We look it over, then run the center (Class 3½).

There is another fast ¼-mile rapid at Mile 198¼, Class 3 with lots of zip. We run the center.

The next three rapids are not much: a Class 2 at Mile 197¾, a Class 2 at Mile 197½, and a Class 1 at Mile 196¾.

We beach the boats on a sparkling white sand beach above Gypsum Rapids. Good swimming hole—in we go—lunch—a short---(sigh)---nap.

We try to catch a yellow racer to spook Russ with, but it escapes. Coming down the canyon we meet Dick on a fossil hunt. It is a noble hunt for him as this is his first field work this year, and the alternate soaking and drying of his feet has cracked them a bit.

Dick and Looie climb a slope, peering together. Around the bend comes Russ taking notes on the Paradox. Back at camp I am alone as Frank and Hank are mapping downstream.

Nobody is late for supper in spite of the dreary aspect the rations are beginning to have.

Prior to this trip I was not well acquainted with the other members of the party. Conversation thus far has uncovered that Hank’s home is 10 miles from Baraboo, Wisconsin, home of an old Navy buddy of mine; Dick and I were stationed at NAACTU, Charleston, Rhode Island, at the same time during World War 2; Frank is from New Jersey and is familiar with the Cape May-Wildwood area where I spent four months one winter [during World War 2]; Looie was born about 10 miles from Pullman, Washington, where I attended school for two years.

Friday, July 27, 1956 —I take leave of camp before breakfast and climb into a side canyon which I hoped would be the site of one of the drawings in Powell’s Report, but I conned it wrong. However, the early morning light is good for a picture of the cliffs on the opposite side of the river.

By the time I get back to camp the others have departed for their mapping chores. After breakfast I clean up camp, then look over the boats.

From our camp I can see across the river, past Gypsum Rapid to the beach where Dave Arnold and I camped, 10/29/52, after the dowsing resulting from capsizing in Gypsum Rapid. A walk down to the rapid shows that all of the roaring we’ve heard for the past day is more than just a barking dog. The best route seems to be slightly left of center. This is to the left of the center route attempted in 1952. The right side should be avoided by all means possible.

[Most of the rapids in canyons of the Colorado Plateau are the result of detritus carried into the river through side canyons following rainstorms. However, some rapids in Cataract Canyon are the consequence of collapse along the canyon’s walls, and the ferocity of Gypsum Rapids was attributed to this source. The Paradox Member of the Hermosa Formation is well exposed at river-right, opposite the mouth of Gypsum Canyon. The solution of salt in this unit of evaporite minerals resulted in weakened support for overlying rocks, gravity faults developed, and blocks of the overlying rocks were fractured and tumbled into the river. Actually, Gypsum Rapid has a dual lineage as some boulders were deposited by Gypsum Creek. However, the more severe part of the rapid was at river-right where the slumped blocks occurred. The boulders, cobbles and pebbles deposited by water could be distinguished from the collapse blocks by their greater roundness, whereas the collapse blocks were more angular].

The boys return in the afternoon, tired, hot, and dry. I have been saving some "Kool Aid" for such an occasion. The stuff is unbearable at home when the wife brews a batch for the kids, but it always tastes good on a hot river trip. We guzzle two gallons in about 15 minutes.

Looie followed Gypsum Canyon up for four miles, in Paradox all of the way, to a high falls. From his description it sounds like the place I had hoped to find this morning.

Saturday, July 28, 1956 —Gypsum Rapids (Class 5½), we all go down for a look. Frank and I run the Jeff Davis left of center—lots of kick and a good ride—an old foe is vanquished. We keep running ahead of the others making good time through center of Class 1 rapid at Mile 196¼, center of Class 1 rapid at Mile 195¾, Palmer Rapids (Mile 195½) has two channels divided by an island. We run the right side (Class 3).

Mile 195 Rapid also has an island at its upper end, but at this stage there is very little water in the left channel. It is Class 4 and has a concealed boulder at its end in the center.

The canyon becomes very narrow at Mile 195, and would afford excellent picture opportunities were the day not so overcast.

On we go through the center of Class 2 rapids at Mile 194½, Mile 194, and a Class 1 at Mile 193½. The others are catching up, and we all dock above Clearwater Rapids at about the same time.

The scenery is magnificent though it will have to go some to beat the sunset on Gypsum Canyon cliffs last night.

The burning of piles of logs on the riverbanks in 1956 was not the crime it is considered in 1997. In fact, the Bureau of Reclamation encouraged such pyrotechnics, as every piece of wood burned in the canyons would be one less which could clog the mouth of Grand Canyon or the weirs at Hoover (Boulder) Dam on Lake Mead.

Clearwater is Class 4, but is rougher in lower water when the undercut left bank is exposed. We shoot the center.

Clearwater presented an unusual hazard. The alluvial fan at the mouth of Clearwater Creek forced the main current of the river against the opposite (left) wall of the canyon where undercut ledges were present. It was possible for boats to pass under those protrusions and for boatmen and passengers to bang the tops of their heads while riding the waves. In high water the rapid is a piece of cake.

Bowdie Rapid (Mile 190½), we stop to see what’s making all the noise. A good Class 5 with trouble on the right side. All come through in fine shape and keep going: a Class 2 at Mile 190, a Class 1 at Mile 189¼.

Dick and Looie go ahead in the Robert E. Lee . We lash the other two boats together for lunch—even light a Coleman burner for hot tea.

We drift through a Class 1 rapid at Mile 188½, and Class 2 rapids at 187½ and 186¾. We catch the other boat and unlash the lunch barge.

A good Class 5 rapid booms away at Mile 184. Lots of rocks on the right side so we run down the left. The boats gather in an eddy below the rapid, then run the Class 2 rapid at Mile 183¾ together.

We spot a big landslide scar on the cliff up Dark Canyon and try some photos from the boats. [This is an incorrect observation. The landslide was in what is now called Rockfall Canyon, and in the excitement of subsequently running Dark Canyon Rapids the mistake was overlooked. Looie and Russ reported that the slide was not present during their mapping in the vicinity during 1955. Thus, the occurrence of the rock fall is dated between August 1955 and July 1956].

We decide to run Dark Canyon Rapid and camp below. Dark Canyon Rapid (Class 6) will be the last big one to run, and I think all are a bit disappointed to see the trip drawing to a close as am I. The rapid has a cluster of boulders in the middle and routes exist on both sides, but the left side looks easier. Looie unloads the Robert E. Lee and comes through. Frank and I follow in the Jeff Davis , and I do a sloppy, drunken waltz from rock to rock. Russ and Hank do best of all in the Dixie Belle.

Second to Big Drop III, we considered Dark Canyon Rapid the most formidable in Cataract Canyon. From a personal point of view, it was my worst run of the trip.

Dark Canyon Rapid was also unusual in that all of the detritus causing it was upstream from the mouth of Dark Canyon. We believed this was because a bend in the canyon which caused the current to drive into and erode a former alluvial fan at the mouth of Dark Canyon.

We set up camp, which means we unload the boats and put the needed eating materials in a good spot. After taking a few pictures I inspect the inscriptions left by previous expeditions: Kolb’s, Nevills, Pathe-Bray, Holmstrom, Hatch, Harris-Brennan, etc.

Looie and I caught some catfish last night. Some = 3, and I cut up the small one for bait, but have no luck.

It has been cloudy all day, and finally after supper it rains. Lightning bolts seem to strike the upper rim, and thunder reverberates in the canyon. After an hour we come out from our cover and try for pictures of the canyon, lit by lightning.

Sunday, July 29,1956 —Last night’s rain has loaded the river with red silt and clay. It looks like Spring on the Red River in Louisiana. Dark Canyon is exuding a red gumbo.

It is 22(?) miles to Hite, and we have two days yet to meet our pick-up schedule there. So, we plan for a slow start this morning.

The Monitor became unwieldy yesterday and will be abandoned today. We have no adapter to which its inflation valve can be fitted to our pumps.

Hank paints a notation on the canyon wall. Dick looks for fossils in Dark Canyon—also for a spring as our river supply is fouled up.

The wall on the south side of Dark Canyon at its junction with the Colorado River had become a tabloid for canyoneers, and inscriptions of previous expeditions were there written. Hank Dyer painted ours. [This panel is now under about 100 feet of water].

We leave Dark Canyon at 9AM. We run a Class 3 rapid at Mile 182½, a Class 1 at Mile 182¼, and a Class 4 at Mile 181½. The latter is formed by the river being confined to a very narrow gap, and it has some nice big waves. Frank and I pull ashore to get some pictures of Russ and Hank who are lagging in the Dixie Belle. We got some good ones.

On we go. A Class 3 at Mile 181, a Class 1 at Mile 180½, and a Class 1 at Mile 180. The river slows down.

We run an unexpected Class 4 rapid at Mile 176 and with it the life jackets are removed and we are through Cataract Canyon. A vote was taken at lunchtime, and it was decided to cut the trip short one day by continuing to Hite. I think this will be more rowing than they realize, but I’m anxious to get off of flight rations, and am for the move.

Frank and I stop so Frank can sample some springs bubbling CO 2 (?) and H 2 S between Mile 174 and 173.

A strong up canyon wind catches us at Mile 174 and I am reminded of the 6 hours Dave and I spent bucking a Narrow Canyon head wind on Halloween Day 1952. We pitch out the sea anchor and catch up with the others who had moored at Mile 173.

We stop for a last toddy on the river. The wind abets, and finally we reach the Fremont (Dirty Devil) River and the end of Narrow Canyon.

The river widens considerably and the gradient picks up slightly. Looie leans into the oars and pulls away. Frank and I swap at the oars every 15 minutes until we reach White Canyon. Our last maneuver before docking is an inglorious tow over a bar.

Sam Pyeatt and Alvy Newman have been waiting for us for three days in event of an early arrival or some kind of trouble.

They rustle up a good supper for us and the six flight ration survivors give a good account of themselves.

Monday, July 30,1956 —We decide to unload the boats at the Hite Ferry, so work the boats down to the crossing.

A grand gang splits up. Looie and Russ head to Denver via Kigalia and Grand Junction; the rest of us head straight for Grand Junction where Dick will catch a plane to Denver.

Another wonderful adventure ends and all is over except for the memories, which though already fading will never fail completely.

In 1969, Jerry Banta accepted a transfer to the Needles district of Canyonlands, becoming one of the first generation of National Park Service rangers to explore this remote area. Thirty years later, he returned to Canyonlands as park superintendent. In a recent interview, Jerry discussed these appointments and how both the landscape, as well as the agency that manages it, have changed.

JB: It was an extremely pleasant place to work. Visitation was about a tenth of what it is today. There was much less need to worry about search and rescue or medical emergencies. Since Canyonlands was a fairly new park, we were still in the process of basic inventory. We spent more than half our time working on wildlife surveys, checking archeological sites, exploring canyons...activities close to the resource. Also, the small number of visitors also allowed us to have more personal contact with them. We’d often spend evenings with folks and share dinner at their campfires, or invite them to our own kitchens. It was a real one-to-one relationship. While we try to maintain that sort of contact now, we generally end up dealing with people en masse in entrance stations and visitor centers. Rarely do we talk at length about resources and their enjoyment of the area.

JB: I’ve always loved this area. I’m originally from Colorado and my wife is from Arizona. We enjoy the climate, the people and the wonderful resources here. When this position opened, I jumped at applying for it.

JB: The change in the gateway communities, particularly Moab, was drastic in terms of development and the number of people and businesses focused on tourism. When I was here before, the town was much smaller and the economic base was broader. As far as the park is concerned, what hit me right away was the tremendous increase of exotic plant populations. The spread of cheat grass , knapweed, tamarisk , and other exotics has significantly changed the landscape. In Salt Creek, for instance, there used to be very little tamarisk. Between Cave Spring and Peekaboo, the creek bed was broad and open. Now, it’s like a canal through the tamarisk. That being said, I was surprised to find a lot of the backcountry in better shape. When I worked in the Needles, we still had grazing, which impacted soils and other resources. There also seems to be less off-road four-wheeling now, since routes and campsites are more established.

JB: I don’t think there is a typical day. Like any business manager, I deal with legal, policy, personnel, budget and other management issues. A good part of my day is spent on the telephone with park visitors or public officials. I spend a lot of time attending meetings, reading outgoing correspondence and reviewing reports from division chiefs. I try to spend one day a week out in the park, though I probably average less than that.

JB: It’s changed in a number of ways. Our role has greatly expanded. The National Park Service is involved in a lot of new programs that deal with preserving resources under the management of other agencies, governments and private landowners. The Park Service is also a much bigger organization. Many of us live in outside communities and have dual-career families, so the park itself isn’t the lifestyle focus it once was for a lot of people. However, the commitment to preservation hasn’t changed. Also, we’ve evolved into an agency of specialists. When I worked in the Needles, research and monitoring was undertaken by the same people who did law enforcement and evening programs. Now, most aspects of management and operation are in the realm of one specialty or another. Finally, park management has become more public. Thirty years ago, decisions were made internally and were generally accepted on that basis. With the National Environmental Policy Act and the Historic Preservation Act, the public has greater access to the decision making process. That’s a major change and, I think, a good one. There are a lot of critical issues that need to have public debate and understanding in order to be resolved.

JB: I don’t think our priorities have changed much, at least not in terms of protecting the resource. We’ve always emphasized making decisions based on science, but now we’re a lot further along in terms of collecting information and perhaps understanding how things work. Our methods used to be very rudimentary since a lot of information was collected by park rangers with a general education. Many of the old issues, like the impact of backcountry roads or frontcountry development, are still relevant. However, changes in the political and social climate, as well as a dramatic increase in visitation, have raised the stakes of management discussions. Still, it’s not so much a shift in priorities as an increase in complexity.

An excerpt from From Controversy to Compromise to Cooperation:The Administrative History of Canyonlands National Park :

"Kent Frost's role in mainstream society's discovery of Canyonlands and the development of a constituency in favor of its preservation cannot be underestimated. From 1956, when he began commercial jeep tours, until Canyonlands National Park was created in September 1964, Frost took 138 trips and 593 people into the Canyonlands basin.

Paralleling Bates Wilson 's role as the official National Park Service representative, Frost was every person's backcountry guide, a regular guy from a local farming family who found joy amidst the region's sedimentary sculptures. Combining his passion with a desire to show people beautiful places while augmenting the family income, Kent and his wife Fern helped reveal Canyonlands to the world.

The preferred commercial guide for official surveys, the media and tourists alike, Frost helped transfer the slickrock aesthetic and surrealistic sculptures of Utah's canyon country to everyone's living room. Long before coffee table books and tourist literature made these phenomenal landscapes part of the global psyche, people around the world gazed at photos of canyon country taken during a Kent Frost-led tour."

Kent Frost died on May 16, 2013. Kent's loving account of his experiences in canyon country, My Canyonlands , can be purchased in our bookstore .

An interview with Kent & Fern Frost In 1994, Gary Cox and Bill Booker spoke at length with Kent Frost and his wife Fern about their experiences in canyon country. [35 pages, 104k PDF file]

Stewart Udall served as secretary of the Interior from 1961 to 1969. He was responsible for much legislation to conserve and protect public lands, including the Wilderness Act , the Endangered Species Preservation Act and the Land and Water Conservation Act . During his tenure, the National Park Service added four national parks, six national monuments, nine recreation areas, 20 historic sites and 56 wildlife refuges.

Canyonlands was one of the national parks created during this time. On a flight over this area in the early 1960s, then Bureau of Reclamation Chief Floyd Dominy showed Udall where he wanted to build the "next" big dam: just below the Confluence of the Colorado and Green rivers. But where Dominy saw a reservior, Stewart Udall saw a national park.

Speaking at Grand View Point on July 26, 2006, Udall revealed this and other moments as he retold the story of how Canyonlands came to be. Udall died on March 20, 2010.

Canyonlands Superintendent Kate Cannon provided a short introduction to this 30-minute presentation (linked below). Stewart Udall On the Creation of Canyonlands, 2006 - YouTube

Birds are the most visible animals in Canyonlands. Even on the hottest summer day, turkey vultures and white-throated swifts circle above the canyons. During winter, juncos and white-crowned sparrows forage around trees and shrubs. While Canyonlands may not be considered a bird watching hot spot, 273 species have been seen in the park, including seasonal and year-round residents as well as migrants.

Canyonlands owes much of this diversity to riparian corridors like the Colorado and Green rivers . In the desert , animal life tends to concentrate around riparian areas because of the abundance of food, water and shelter. During spring and summer, mornings along the rivers are filled with birdsong, including blue grosbeaks, yellow-breasted chats, spotted towhees and canyon wrens. Great blue herons are often seen hunting the shallows for fish, while Cooper’s hawks deftly maneuver through the tangle of trees beyond the riverbanks.

Many birds favor the “upland” areas where grasses, shrubs and small trees dominate. Say’s phoebes, black-throated sparrows and western meadowlarks frequent grasslands. Pinyon jays, scrub jays, juniper titmice and black-throated gray warblers are usually seen in pinyon-juniper woodlands.

Since they are able to fly, it is difficult to generalize about what birds will be found in a particular habitat. However, regardless of habitat or season, the common raven figures prominently in the desert landscape. Ravens are intelligent birds that, according to scientists, display abilities to play and problem-solve rare among animals. This jet-black member of the crow family is also very vocal, using a variety of sounds for communication. Perhaps because of these qualities, ravens have achieved a certain stature in both European and Native American folklore.

Canyonlands monitors bird populations at several selected locations in both upland and riparian areas. Some surveys count all birds, while others focus on birds that actually nest in the park. Findings from these surveys and others like them are used to monitor the health of local bird populations and estimate species richness throughout the country.

Many visitors are surprised at the amount of vegetation in Canyonlands. Plants are critical components to all ecosystems, and Canyonlands is no exception. Plants capture particulate dust in the air, filter gaseous pollutants, convert carbon dioxide to oxygen, provide animal habitat and possess many raw materials useful to humans.

Visitors encounter a variety of plant species from tiny lichens clinging to sandstone to stately cottonwoods growing in canyon bottoms. Wildflowers bloom in spring, cacti appear among knobby biological soil crust, and bunch grasses grow throughout the open country. These varied communities and ecosystems allow scientists to research how plants adapt to a changing world.

Many adaptations in leaves and roots enable plants to survive the extremes of temperature and aridity found in Canyonlands. These adaptations are grouped in three categories: drought escapers, drought resistors and drought evaders.

Drought escapers are plants that make use of favorable growing conditions when they exist. These plants are usually annuals that grow only when enough water is available. Seeds may lie dormant for years if conditions are not favorable. Spring annual wildflowers are escapers. They sprout following winter and early spring rains, and sometimes again after late summer rains.

Drought resistors are typically perennials. Many have small, spiny leaves that reduce the impact of solar radiation, and some may drop their leaves if water is unavailable. Spines and hairy leaves act to reduce exposure to air currents and solar radiation, limiting the amount of water lost to evaporation. Cacti , yuccas and mosses are examples of drought resistors. Yuccas have extensive taproots that are able to use water beyond the reach of other plants. Moss, a plant not commonly associated with deserts, thrives because it can tolerate complete dehydration: when rains finally return, mosses green up immediately.

Another extreme adaptation can be found in the Utah juniper, one of the most common trees in the southwest. During a drought, junipers can self-prune, diverting fluids from one or more their branches in order to conserve enough water for the tree to survive.

Drought evaders, the final group, survive in riparian areas where water is plentiful. Monkey flower, columbine and maidenhair fern are found in well-shaded alcoves near seeps or dripping springs. Cottonwoods and willows require a lot of water, and only grow along river corridors and intermittent streams where their roots can reach the water table easily.

Though the natural quiet of Canyonlands often creates the impression of lifelessness, many animals live here. Birds , lizards and some rodents are seen most frequently, though seasons and weather play a large role in determining what animals are active.

Desert animals have a variety of adaptations for dealing with the temperature and moisture stresses present in Canyonlands. Most desert animals are nocturnal, being most active at night. This can be an adaptation to both predation and hot summer daytime temperatures. Mostly nocturnal animals include kangaroo rats, woodrats (also called packrats) and most other small desert rodents, skunks, ringtails, foxes, bobcats, mountain lions, bats and owls.

Animals that are most active at dawn and dusk are called “crepuscular.” These times of day are cooler than mid-day. The half-dark makes prey animals less visible, yet visibility is good enough to locate food. Some animals are crepuscular mostly because their prey is crepuscular. Crepuscular animals include mule deer, coyotes, porcupines, desert cottontails, black-tailed jackrabbits, and many songbirds.

A few desert animals are primarily active during the day, or “diurnal.” These include rock squirrels, antelope squirrels, chipmunks, lizards, snakes, hawks, and eagles. Many animals have a temperature range in which they are active, so alter their active times of day depending on the season. Snakes and lizards go into an inactive state of torpor during the winter, are active during the day during the late spring and early fall, and become crepuscular during the heat of summer. Many insects alter their times of activity. For example, mosquitoes may be out all night, all day, or at dawn or dusk, depending on temperature.

Almost 50 species of mammal are known to live in Canyonlands. Some animals, like desert cottontails, kangaroo rats and mule deer, are common and may be seen by a majority of visitors. However, many desert animals are inactive during daylight hours or wary of humans, so sightings can be truly special events. Tracks and scat are the most common signs of an animal’s presence.

Canyonlands’ hot climate and lack of water seems to favor small mammals. Because of their size, these animals are less able to migrate, but have an easier time finding shelter and require less food and water to live. Rodents are numerous: there are nine species of mice and rats alone. Beavers, the largest North American rodent, are found along the Colorado and Green rivers . Since the rivers are too swift and broad to dam, beavers burrow dens in the banks.

One animal uniquely adapted to life in the desert is the kangaroo rat. This rat lives its entire life consuming nothing but plant matter. Its body produces water by metabolizing the food it eats. However, even the kangaroo rat is prone to spending the hottest daylight hours sleeping in a cool underground burrow and may even plug the opening with dirt or debris for insulation.

Larger mammals, like mule deer and mountain lions, must cover more territory in order to find food and water, and sometimes migrate to nearby mountains during summer. In Utah, around 80 percent of a mountain lion’s diet consists of mule deer, so these animals are never far apart. However, unlike mule deer, mountain lion sightings are very rare.

Desert bighorn sheep live year-round in Canyonlands. These animals roam the talus slopes and side canyons along the rivers, foraging on plants and negotiating the steep, rocky terrain with the greatest of ease. Once in danger of becoming extinct, the desert bighorn are now making a tentative comeback that has been fueled by the healthy herds in Canyonlands.

An interesting fall visitor to Canyonlands is the black bear . An unusual sight in the red rock canyons, black bears follow river and stream corridors, like Salt Creek Canyon in The Needles , that flow from nearby mountains. These visits generally occur in late August and September when prickly pear cactus and hackberry trees bear their fruit. The bears return to the mountains before winter.

Canyonlands National Park is a showcase of geology. In each of the park's districts, visitors can see the remarkable effects of millions of years of erosion on a landscape of sedimentary rock. Pictured above, the Green River has carved a channel out of rock layers deposited nearly 300 million years ago.

Most of the rock found in Canyonlands today came from distant mountain ranges like the ancestral Rockies and even the Appalachians. For millions of years, rock was broken down and carried here by wind and water, creating deposits that eventually became distinct layers of sedimentary rock.

Some layers were laid down by rivers, their sandy channels surrounded by swamps and lakes. Wind brought some of the thickest layers, creating vast sand deserts or dune fields on the shores of an ancient sea.

The accumulating rock created a geologic layer cake , with most of the material hidden below the surface. There were no canyons: only vast plains gently sloping into the distance.

Many of the rocks exposed in Canyonlands were deposited near sea level. Today, the average elevation here is over 5,000 feet above sea level – a significant uplift.

Canyonlands is part of a region called the " Colorado Plateau ," an area that stands high above the surrounding country. About 20 million years ago, movement in the Earth's crust began to alter the landscape of North America, building modern landforms like the Rocky Mountains, Nevada's Basin and Range, and the Colorado Plateau. Some geologists believe that the plateau has risen as much as 10,000 feet since the uplift began.

These movements also created cracks where melted rock rose from deep inside the Earth. In some places, it cooled before reaching the surface, creating pockets of harder, igneous rock within the surrounding sedimentary layers. Eventually, erosion exposed these harder deposits, creating the isolated mountain ranges visible from Canyonlands: the La Sals, Henrys and Abajos.

Today's landscape is one of erosion. As this area gradually rose, rivers that once deposited sediment on the lowlands began to remove it from the emerging plateau. The Green and Colorado rivers began carving into the geologic layer cake, exposing buried sediments and creating the canyons of Canyonlands.

However, the rivers aren't the only force of erosion. Summer thunderstorms bring heavy rains that scour the landscape. Some layers erode more easily than others. As softer rock dissolves away, layers of harder rock form exposed shelves, giving the canyon walls their stair-step appearance. Occasionally, a slab of harder rock will protect a weaker layer under it, creating balanced rocks and towers. Great examples of this are visible in Monument Basin at Island in the Sky and the Land of Standing Rocks in The Maze.

Water also seeps into cracks in the rock, eroding and widening them until only thin spires remain, like those found in The Needles.

As the work of erosion continues, today's geologic displays will eventually disappear, making way for future wonders.

One Park, Four Districts, Endless Possibilities Canyonlands National Park preserves 337,598 acres of colorful canyons, mesas, buttes, fins, arches, and spires in the heart of southeast Utah's high desert. Water and gravity have been the prime architects of this land, sculpting layers of rock into the rugged landscape you see today. Canyonlands preserves the natural beauty and human history throughout its four districts, which are divided by the Green and Colorado rivers. While the districts share a primitive desert atmosphere, each retains its own character and offers different opportunities for exploration and adventure. Though they appear close on a map, there are no roads that directly link the districts. Traveling between them requires two to six hours by car as there are few places to cross the rivers. Get directions. Most people find it impractical to visit more than one area in a single trip. Use the map below to get some ideas on places to go.

Horseshoe Canyon Unit Northwest of The Maze, Horseshoe Canyon is a day-use area with stunning American Indian rock marking panels.

Island in the Sky Trails Several short trails explore the mesa top with minimal elevation change, enjoying canyon views from above. Moderate trails involve elevation, such as climbing a sandstone feature or descending partway into a canyon. Long trails at Island in the Sky begin on the mesa top and descend via switchbacks to the White Rim bench, or beyond to one of the rivers. All are considered strenuous, with an elevation change of 1,000-2,000 feet, and require negotiating steep slopes of loose rock as well as sections of deep sand. All trails are marked with cairns (small rock piles). Water is scarce; bring at least 1 quart (1 L) of water per person for short trails, and up to 1 gallon (4 L) for long trails. Avoid hiking during peak heat on summer days. Carry a flashlight, map, and basic first aid equipment. Download maps here . Planning an overnight trip? Read about backpacking. Protect Your Park - Keep off the Arches. To promote visitor safety and the opportunity to view natural features undisturbed, climbing, scrambling, walking or standing upon, or rappelling off any arch is prohibited in the park.

The Needles Trails The Needles offers over 60 miles of interconnecting trails as challenging as they are rewarding. Many different itineraries are possible, but some of the more popular ones are listed below. Four short, self-guided trails along the paved scenic drive highlight different aspects of the park's natural and cultural history. Surfaces can be uneven. Trail guides are available at the visitor center and at the trailheads. Conditions of other trails are more primitive, traversing a mixture of slickrock benches and sandy washes. Longer trails are especially rough and require negotiating steep passes with drop-offs, narrow spots, or ladders. Water in the backcountry is unreliable and scarce in some areas. Trails are marked with cairns (small rock piles). Although most trails can be hiked in a day by strong hikers, many form loops and may be combined with other trails for longer trips. Net elevation change is generally several hundred feet or less, except for the Lower Red Lake Trail, which drops 1,400 feet to the Colorado River. Download maps here . Planning a overnight trip? Read about backpacking and how to obtain a permit.

The Maze Trails Horseshoe Canyon is a popular hiking destination in The Maze. Because of the remoteness of The Maze, most other trails are best for overnight trips. Read about backpacking. Download maps here. Back to top

The Maze Trails in The Maze are steep, unmarked, and minimally maintained. Route finding may be difficult. Some trails require basic climbing manuveurs in order to negogiate sections of steep slickrock and pour-offs. Routes into canyons may have cairns from the mesa top to canyon bottom, but the washes are not marked. The canyons can look similar and be difficult to identify without a topographic map.

Download mileage maps here. Trail/Route Distance (round-trip) Average Time Description Moderate Horseshoe Canyon 7 miles (11.2 km) 4-5 hours A moderate trail descending 780 ft (237 m) and continuing through a deep, sandy canyon bottom to view various pictographs and petroglyph sites, including the Great Gallery. Exposed with minimal shade. Not recommended during summer. Strenuous Maze Overlook (mesa top to canyon bottom) 1 mile (12 km) 1 hour Trail steeply descends from the Maze Overlook down to a wash bottom. A 25-foot (7.6 m) length of rope is often necessary to raise and lower packs in difficult spots. Basic climbing maneveurs are required to negogiate steep slickrock and pour offs. Multiple unmarked routes continue from wash bottom to reach Land of Standing Rocks.

Jump to: Island in the Sky | The Needles | The Maze Canyonlands has hundreds of miles of hiking trails which explore the park’s natural and cultural features. Both Island in the Sky and The Needles provide ample opportunities for short walks, day hikes and backpacking trips. Due to its remoteness, The Maze is primarily a backpacking destination. Trails are usually marked with cairns (small rock piles) and have signs at intersections. Many remote trails do not receive regular maintenance and may not be adequately marked. All backcountry hikers should carry a topographic map.

A short hike leads to a cliff-edge arch. Mesa Arch is a classic sunrise spot and is popular among photographers. It has stunning views toward the La Sal Mountains any time of day.

Walk to an east-facing overlook for views of the Colorado River, Monument Basin, and La Sal Mountains. Best in late afternoon. Very limited trailhead parking.

A stunning out-and-back trail, this walk showcases spectacular panoramic views as it follows the canyon edge.

This longer hike leads past a historic corral on the mesa top. The trail ends with panoramic views of Candlestick Tower, the Green River, and the White Rim Road .

A short but steep trail leads to a clear view into Upheaval Dome. Exhibits at the end of the trail discuss this unique geologic feature. One-hundred-foot elevation change (30 m). Hiking to second overlook adds 1 mile (1.5 km) and 50 feet (15 m) elevation change.

This trail leads up the side of a sandstone dome, ending with broad views of Island in the Sky. Be careful: steep drop-offs. Elevation change: 100 feet (30 m)