Moab, UT, Canyonlands NP - Needles District - 2025

The drive to Canyonlands Needles District  from our park was almost an hour. We got delayed for over a half hour due to this accident. They had the highway shutdown while they flipped this truck upright. The next task would be getting that huge base off the road. Thankfully the driver was not injured. 

You may or may not remember me posting pictures of Bears Ears. What is special about Bears Ears? The landscape is known to contain over 100,000 cultural sites from the early inhabitants of the area. These sites are incredibly fragile and not really prepared to accommodate hordes of curious travelers. The National Monument actually has some history to it that is interesting and a little political.😕

When driving into Canyonlands National Park you'll be passing through a section of Bears Ears National Monument, or not. Knowing the boundaries of this national monument are a little complicated and subject to change. Named for the twin buttes that rise dramatically out of the Colorado Plateau, about 30 miles as the crow flies from the Needles district of Canyonlands. This monument designation was unique in that it was the first time in history the Native American tribes appealed to a U.S. president to protect their ancestral lands.

President Barack Obama declared Bears Ears a national monument in December of 2016 but less than a year later Trump reduced the size of Bears Ears by 85%, from the 1.3 million acres originally designated to 200,000 acres at the urging of Utah state politicians. President Biden then restored the land in October of 2021 at the urging of Native groups and the outdoor recreation industry.

It is a struggle between descendants of White Mormon pioneer families, local Native tribe members, newcomers drawn to the area by its incredible recreation opportunities, state politicians, and federal land managers to agree on the best use of this land. Some local politicians feel that tourism doesn't bring enough money into the area to justify the large swaths of protected land and would rather the land be open for mineral extraction. Indigenous people wish for their cultural sites and burial lands to be protected, climbers want access to these huge sandstone cliffs and national park travelers prefer their views to be free of oil derricks and smokestacks.

The conflict over Bears Ears is a good representation of the struggles of public land user all over the West. I.m guessing this story has many more chapters in the future.

The first stop just inside the park was a petroglyph panel called Newspaper Rock.

Six Shooter Peaks, one is North Six Shooter Peak and is a bit taller and larger than its neighbor South Six Shooter Peak. There is about a mile and a half between the two peaks. Both peaks are popular with climbers, south is considered one of the easiest climbs around.

We hiked out to Pothole Point to try and get a glimpse of the Needles. It's called Pothole Point because the slickrock here is covered with pockets in the rock called potholes or ephemeral pools. The potholes are tiny ecosystems with a collection of plant and animal life that comes to life when the pool fills with water after a desert rain. When the water dries up, many of the pool residents' eggs enter a sort of suspended animation and won't hatch until the pool fills with water again.

The Needles at a distance

A tree growing out of a crack in the rock

On the drive back we stopped at the roadside attraction, Hole 'N the Rock.  It is a 5,000-square-foot home carved into sandstone by the Christensen family nearly a century ago. Today, it's a popular pit stop that pulls in about 500 visitors a day. Besides a 12 min tour for $7 they have a gift shop. 

They also had these unique items, the Jeep was pretty cool.