Photo Tips USA – Canyonlands NP – Island in the Sky Mesa

• Altitude 1820 m (5,970 ft)

How, Where, What

An island it truly is, the Island in the Sky. Only The Neck, a narrow ridge to the northeast, connects it to the surrounding „mainland“. Its shape reflects the erosional power of the Colorado and Green Rivers, both of whose combined action has carved this mighty „V“ into the rock. Frayed at the edges by many canyons, the Island in the Sky towers some 300 m (980 ft) above the erosion step below it, the hard sandstone of the White Rim. The view from up here stretches endlessly across the Needles and the Maze to the distant horizons of the surrounding mountain ranges. Compared to these panoramas, the plateau of the Mesa itself is photographically rather less interesting.

Motifs on the Island in the Sky Mesa

The first viewpoints after the park entrance are the Shafer Canyon Overlook and The Neck near the Visitor Center, both with good views of the steep switchbacks of the Shafer Trail leading down to the plateau of the White Rim. Then we head across the mesa’s dense grassy plateau, which doesn’t yet reveal any of the drama of the Canyonlands.

Just before the park road forks to the northeast and south is the trailhead to Mesa Arch. It only spans 16 m (52 ft) across Buck Canyon, but you can get up close and personal when the rising sun makes its underside glow red and capture an image that is rightly immortalized on many postcards and calendars. – A real classic! Sunrise means early rising and some preparation to take this great photo. You can find out the exact time of sunrise at the Visitor Center in Moab. You should start your journey from town at least 75 minutes in advance to ensure you arrive on time. When the time comes and the sun appears as the main protagonist above the horizon, on the left side in the summer and on the right in the winter, the underside of the arch glows bright red! Exposure is tricky, but you get good results if you orient it to the sky just below the arc. With integral metering, 1/2 stop overexposure is usually sufficient. This spectacle lasts 20 minutes at max, but the first five minutes offer the most intense color gradient from red to orange to yellow. A wide-angle lens of around 35 mm captures the arc nicely and preserves the details in the background. You can frame the perspective of the canyons and the La Sal Mountains from a hill 20 m (65 ft) away with a light telephoto. The Mesa Arch is still worth a stop at the end of the day, when the sun illuminates its front, making it contrast handsomely with the blue sky. The flat trail from the parking area measures only 400 m (0.2 m).

Back on the park road, keep right at the next intersection toward Upheaval Dome. The turnoff immediately to the left leads to Willow Flats Campground and the Green River Overlook. Situated 2000 m (6,561 ft) above sea level, this overlook looks west from a cliff onto the wide panorama of the Maze, Land of Standing Rock and the Canyon of the Green River. To the right of the overlook, the canyon rim has the best-shaped juniper bushes, some of which are dead. This is where the park brochure cover photo was taken. At sunset, they make for a beautiful foreground. However, note that there is no actual trail along this area, nor are there any boundaries along the rim!

The Holeman Spring Canyon Overlook on the last stretch of Park Road to Upheaval Dome also offers another good view over the basin of the same name and the canyon of the Green River.

Upheaval Dome itself is very difficult to capture in a picture because of its size. The whole geometric structure of the concentric rock rings is visible from no point; at most, one can pick out parts or details. Interesting are the views from the two vantage points at the Viewpoint Trail of the multicolored (green, red, pink to yellow-brown) small hills rising from the ground. Geologists continue to debate whether a meteorite impact or a collapsed salt pad created the formation. The Upheaval Dome Trail leads from the parking lot over 1.5 or 3 kilometers (each way there and back, 0.9–1.8 miles) to the 1st or 2nd viewpoint at the southern edge of the formation. Another trail circles Upheaval Dome for its total length of 13 km (8 mi), entering the center of the crater at one point for 2.5 km (1.5 mi). The trail is challenging, featuring significant ascents, and frequently traverses through extremely narrow spaces.

While traveling further south to Grand View Point, Buck Canyon Overlook offers some nice views to the east and northeast of the two large loops of the Colorado River.

Orange Cliffs Overlook, just before the end of the park, looks west to the five broad erosion terraces around the White Rim.

The broad panorama at Grand View Point is the most spectacular on Island in the Sky and is most effectively taken in late afternoon. It includes the La Sal Mountains to the east, Thousand Lakes Mountain and the volcanic Henry Mountains to the west, and the densely forested Abajos and Elk Ridge to the southwest. Looking a little shorter, one can see the Needles to the southwest and the upright cliffs in the Maze to the northwest. For a long time, you can sit here under an overcast sky and watch the puzzle at your feet. How, for example, two pickup trucks, white as the White Rim Trail they travel on, small as toys, yet only 300 meters away vertically (980 ft), perform their evasive maneuvers. In this sea of rich, earthy tones, they seem like they are from another world, not belonging to the archaic down there. And yet they only reinforce the already disconcerting impression that set in at the beginning: it’s a puzzle, but somehow the pieces don’t want to fit together. Here, one is not on the same level as the other actors. The Island in the Sky Mesa is more or less the top of the three worlds described by the sign at the lookout. The second level is described by the White Rim, a harder rock that defies erosion, located in Monument Basin. The steep, sometimes dark Colorado River valley, aptly named Gorge here, forms the lowest step and hosts one of the two creators of the spectacle. Only when the clouds break, the gloom gives way, and bright light floods through the canyon landscape does the confusion make sense. It is only now that the parts come together to form a whole, revealing their original carving from the solid rock of an ancient plain!

The Grand View Point Trail takes you to the far end of the mesa. There and back is 6.4 km (4 mi) or 2 hours. On the east side of the viewpoint, a short paved trail leads to a view over Monument Basin. The monuments truly exist in the depths: an army of tall rock towers, all nearly the same height and capped with white from the White Rim layer, cast their long shadows across the canyon in the morning light. On the west side, a different trail takes you past the overlook to the far end of the plateau. From here, you can watch the sunset behind Ekker Butte, already part of Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. And once again, the already familiar ancient juniper bushes off the trail line the foreground.

Minimum program and daily schedule

If you have only one clear day for the Island in the Sky, you should start it with sunrise at Mesa Arch, then go quickly to Grand View Point Overlook and end it with sunset at Green River Overlook. An additional day could include Dead Horse Point SP, at least a partial circumnavigation of Upheaval Dome, and a second sunset at Grand View Point. You could spend a third day, either alone or in a group, exploring the Shafer Trail from Moab.

Next Photo Tips The White Rim

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