Dead Horse Rules

Trip Start May 09, 2009

Trip End May 29, 2009

Loading Map

Map your own trip!

Map Options

Show trip route

Hide lines

Where I stayed

Up the Creek Campground

Flag of United States Moab, Utah
Tuesday, May 12, 2009

We hiked Dead Horse State Park today. We wanted an early start to beat the heat and see the early morning sun colours, so were up around 6 a.m. After searching for a coffee stand open at that hour, we headed out to visit Dead Horse and the Island in the Sky District for Canyonlands National Park.

Dead Horse sits atop a mesa. The legend is that cowboys would round up the wild mustang, driving them to the end of the mesa and corraling them at a pinch point. The ones not broken were left to die. We arrived before most people, and had mostly to ourselves the southern viewpoint of The Gooseneck on the Colorado River. The Rim Trail follows the edge of the mesa, circling around beyond the pinchpoint at the neck and back around the the southern viewpoint. We saw some mule deer, desert cottontail, several birds, and some barrel cacti in the beginning throes of blooming. It was a magical hike.

Slideshow