Canyonlands National Park

Canyonlands is about 10 miles SW of Arches National Park.  It's about 4.5 times larger than Arches - 519 square miles to 119 square miles, respectively. We had read that there is a huge difference between the two parks even though they are so close together. When you see the photos, I think you will agree.  Unfortunately, we did not enjoy it it as much as we would have liked.  T'was the season for biting gnats.  They would fly in your ears, in your eyes, in your mouth and up your nose.  Not a pleasant experience.  You know it's bad when the park rangers tell you to just get out of your car, snap a few photos and leave!  That's about what we did. Except for the last photo, there are no captions on the photos; as I said, it was all we could do to even see what we did in the park, so we didn't keep track of the names of the various areas.

Buckthorn Cholla The flower, about 3' across, is just about as big as the plant.