Only two parts of Canyonlands National Park are readily available to the public, and they are separated by two hours of highway and mountain driving. The Park is made of up three distinct districts, being The Island in the Sky, The Needles, and The Maze. The Maze is accessible only several days of hiking or a rough and tumble drive down an extreme four-wheel drive trail. Closest to Arches is The Island in the Sky district. This is the highest point in the park with an average elevation of over 6000 feet above see level, and is also the most visited portion. A good forty-five minute drive west of Route 191 takes you to the visitors center, a modest structure that primarily serves as a depot to register for back country permits. For people just looking for a drive through park the Canyonlands is a poor choice. It receives most of its business from its Jeep and mountain bike trails and from the back country camping that it offers. Island in the Sky offers incredible scenic vistas of the Needles and Maze districts below it. Unlike the Grand Canyon, overlooking the edge of the walls you look down into an odd and amazing valley that is home to hundreds of different individual canyons.
The White Rim road is a hundred mile round trip around a portion of Canyonlands which takes two to four days to drive in a four wheel drive vehicle and is also traveled by ATV enthusiasts. This is what drew the most interest for me. I one day hope to make it back to this portion of Utah better equipped and prepared to make the drive and experience parts of the park that many people have the chance to. The park remained mostly unexplored for me as I passed through The Needles and The Island in the Sky. It demands to be its own dedicated trip with overnight camping in the back country as a must.
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