Wednesday 18th October - day 29.
Canyonlands and Arches to Capitol Reef.

Another self inflicted early start today. Several guides had mentioned that when visiting Canyonlands ‘Island in the Sky’, watching sunrise at the Mesa Arch was a great thing to do.
Luckily we were an hour later here in Utah so that sunrise was set for 7.30. We aimed to get to the Mesa Arch by 7 and set our alarms for 5.45.
We bumped our way out of the campsite and drove the one hour drive into the National Park. We felt very excited and pleased with ourselves as we drove along in the darkness, down into the Island in the Sky, watching a faint dark red glow appearing in the distant eastern horizon on our left. Gradually we became aware of car tail lights along the open winding road in front of us, and when we arrived at the pull-in car park for Mesa Arch there were already several cars parked there.
Wearing warm clothes and head torches, we hiked the half mile over the rocks to reach the arch, at the same time watching the sky grow lighter.
As we approached the Arch we could see figures ahead of us - all absorbed by the scenery, watching the sky. We stood near the Mesa Arch, a beautiful rock sculpture at any time of day. Through the Arch we could see pale, distant views of mountains and canyons, as well as the distant horizon.
As the sun rose, the under surface of the Arch glowed pink, then apricot, then gold. Camera shutters clicked and clicked all around us and photographers appeared from all over the place, jostling to position their tripods to get the best shot.
We wandered away to watch the spectacle away from the crowds. One loud Australian had started to give a running commentary to the sunrise, and to his own great amusement started broadcasting ‘Here comes the sun’ on his mobile phone, before entertaining everyone by asking them to guess how old he was.... time to go!
We drove on south, down to the southern tip of the Island in the Sky - Grand View Point Overlook. The car park was very well designed - it had three spaces marked RVs only, right in the prime spot overlooking a vast distant plateau with The Needles on the southern horizon.
We ran the trail along the top of the cliffs for a mile or so to the overlook, and climbed up onto a rocky headland.
It was still early morning, and quite cool but there were blue skies and warm sunshine already. We showered and sat outside to eat breakfast, watched by a large blue/black raven, perched motionless on a dead tree nearby.
We drove back north and over to the west side of the park past dozens of rock shapes resembling a variety of objects including candlestick tower and whale rock.
Our next destination was Arches National Park. As we drove in there were signs of road works and lots of the pull ins and car parks were closed. Despite this we had a trouble free drive through the park.
The scenery was really quite remarkable. A vast flat desert plain, dotted everywhere with spectacular red rock fins, spires, arches, pinnacles and balanced rocks. Many of the rocks had curious shapes eg The Three Gossips. All were intriguing and fascinating.
We drove north to Devil’s Garden and then hiked along a hot and dusty trail to Landscape Arch. This huge stone bridge spans a wide canyon full of trees with blue sky behind. It looked so improbable - such a delicate piece of rock, looking as if it might crack and disintegrate at any moment.
We sat and ate our picnic in the shade and then wandered back via two further arches - Pine tree Arch and Tunnel Arch.
We drove back out of the park stopping at Delicate Arch and then the Windows section - north and south windows. So many photographic opportunities.
Then it was time to hit the road and move on with the road trip. We drove west on highway 70, then turned off south to 24 and finally onto the scenic highway 12.
I would highly recommend this road - just as beautiful as the national parks without the crowds of other tourists!
Everywhere there was spectacular rocky scenery.
The colour had changed from red/orange to grey / buff. There were cliffs, buffs and deep canyons everywhere. It was made even better by the beautiful golden fall foliage - all shades from red and orange to yellow and lime green. We were approaching Capitol Reef National Park. As expected, the National Park campsites were all full, but we found space in a free roadside park a few miles further on that served perfectly well for a short overnight stay. Entering the campground and parking required some significant off road skills but soon we were eating supper and settling down to plan tomorrow.