We stayed in Green River, which is a 1.5 hour drive to the canyon, starting on fast open highway and ending with approximately 30km of dirt road which we took slow and steady in our rented Camry. We phoned the very helpful park ranger the day before to check the road condition, as it’s prone to sand-shift (contact info available from the Arches NP visitor centre).
We started walking about 8.45am, having had a quick chat to the park rangers who were taking a guided walk down. You descend into the canyon, and then along the sandy riverbed past four rock panels with pictographs. The last one – the Great Gallery, as seen in the opening shot of Koyaanisqatsi, has a seat with logbook and binoculars, plus some historical information. We had lunch and were visited by the resident chipmunk in an unsuccessful quest for scraps. We spent about an hour here before the rangers arrived with their small group.
After lunch we continued along the track up to a lookout, where the view back in to the canyon was quite spectacular. On our return we took a short detour up Water Canyon. This became a bit overgrown and the wind was picking up, so we decided to head back to the car not too far along.
One of the most enjoyable aspects of the walk was the lack of people, in stark contrast to the other more well-known canyons/parks we visited, some featuring boombox-toting 20 year olds.
All up it took us about 6.5 hours with a descent/ascent of around 300m (+ the climb to the lookout).
I’d highly recommend this walk if you’re ever in Utah!
-
- Water Canyon
-
- View from the lookout
-
- View from the lookout
-
- Dinosaur footprint
-
- The Great Gallery
