After several hours of enjoying off road trails in Canyonlands national park, we stopped at the Joint Trail to take in some hiking and amazing views. There are basically two ways to get to this spot: traveling in a high clearance 4-wheel drive vehicle or hiking several miles through this beautiful desert landscape. This is a nice, relatively short hike through slot canyons with a little climbing in tight spots. It’s a very different experience from the hikes I’ve taken before. The tall, almost claustrophobic slot canyons were a little unnerving. What if they cave in? It almost felt like each side of the canyon was a tectonic plate slowly closing in towards each other. I continually reminded myself at first that these have been like this for a long, long time and the likelihood of rocks collapsing at the exact time I’m underneath is highly unlikely. Once I convinced myself that nothing will happen I could enjoy these geological wonders. Navigating through these canyons for a distance, there’s a climb to get up and out of them and there you are in the middle of the Needles this part of the park is named for.
Beautiful rock sculptures made up of different colors, shapes, and sizes. Each color is a different layer created during the formation of these sculptures before erosion formed them into what we see today making a them the colorful wonders you see in this photograph. Add in a blue sky and evergreens for a nice color contrast to the rock and you have such an incredible view.
