Dead Horse Point

The lady who helped us so much with what to see in Arches NP also gave us a proposed itinerary for Dead Horse Point State Park.  In giving us suggestions for hikes, she asked if we were afraid of heights and we said not particularly so long as the trail is not too steep or difficult.  She said that one of her favorite hikes was the West Rim and East Rim Trail at Dead Horse Point State Park and it was a 4 mile loop.

We drove out to the Dead Horse Point SP visitor center to pay our $10 Utah State Park entrance fee.  (Our national parks pass is not accepted in state parks.)  We walked out to the overlooks near the visitor center:

If our hike offers views rivaling these, we are going to be amazed!

The West Rim portion of the loop is 2.5 miles and the East Rim portion is 1.5 miles.  The trail starts at the visitor center, goes all away around the rim of Dead Horse Point and ends up back at the visitor center.  We decided to tackle the 2.5 mile portion first.

We passed by the first "off-shoot" to Big Horn Overlook because it would have added another 2.5 miles to our hike.  But since the next off-shoot to the Rim Overlook was only 1/2 mile round trip, we decided to hike out there....

...and we were glad we did!

                                                         

As we were walking along, I got to thinking.  You have ridden along with us in the car and in the motorhome on some of the videos but you have never hiked along with us.  I took a series of video clips and spliced them together of our next 1/2 mile "off-shoot" hike out to Shafer Canyon Overlook.

It is filmed at waist level so I could keep an eye on where I was walking.  Hope you are not too distracted by my breathing and clink-clink of my hiking stick.  :)  Enjoy the hike...and the views!

Meander Overlook, the next overlook we came to on the West Rim trail, was just a short distance from the trail. 

So we meandered our way over to Meander Overlook. 

From here, we got our first good look at the Colorado River since beginning the hike.

We decided to sit down, rest, and enjoy the scenery for a few minutes.

This looks like a good spot!

That's a long way down!!!

I was careful!

From Meander, we hiked over to Dead Horse Point, where the West Rim trail ended and the East Rim trail begun.  Once again, the views were spectacular!

According to legend, this point was once used as a corral for wild mustangs roaming the mesa.  Some cowboys rounded the horses up and herded them across the narrow neck of land going out to the point, which is only about 30 yards wide, and corralled them there with the steep cliffs as natural boundaries.

The cowboys chose the horses they wanted and for reasons unknown, left the remaining horses on the waterless point where they died of thirst within view of the Colorado River, 2,000 feet below.  How sad! 

Off in the distance, we could see what appeared to be a couple of small ponds or lakes.

They were not lakes but evaporation ponds for making mining potassium to be used in fertilizer.

After a quick pit stop at the rest rooms on the point (which happened to be the nicest rest rooms of any state or national park we have been in), we started hiking the East Rim Trail.

After finishing our hike, we ate our lunch in the picnic area of Dead Horse Point and then headed for our next stop:  Canyonlands National Park.