Road Trip Day 24 – Canyonlands National Park – Chesler Park/Joint Trail Hike

We woke up early, as our tent faced East that way we would get the morning sun and could be immediately warmed up. Another item on the checklist. We had a breakfast full of coffee and oatmeal and then made our way to the trail head. For this was to be a long hike. 11 miles roundtrip. We were both excited at the fact that we slept relatively well and didn’t freeze. We paid for another nights camping. We were planning to pay day by day and let the cold dictate our decision. If it got to cold, we were outta there. We drove down a dirtroad, a pretty easy one that most cars can make, to the trail head. At the trailhead you could either hike, or there was a 4 wheel drive road. Canyonlands has a ton of 4 wheel drive only roads that you can drive on. This would be awesome to do sometime. I do prefer hiking to 4 wheel road driving though, so we chose to hike. I should say that the needles district and the maze district are crawling with 4 wheel drive only roads and you can get backcountry permits and just drive all over the place and camp as well. Also both sections are a backpackers paradise. However with it being november and the park was relatively empty we didn’t need to backpack to escape crowds, so we could just camp at the campgrounds so we could have a fire, b/c there are no fires allowed in the backcountry and enjoy the solitude of a national park with empty trails. The hike was incredible. It was also incredibly windy. Some sections were windier than others, and we were able to escape the wind entirely in several sections, but it was definitely a very windy day. The sun was out however, and the temperature was really pretty warm; which was really nice. We hiked through so many different types of rock formations, look at pictures, I don’t know the names of all the different types. Several canyon overlooks. But primarily we hiked right in between the formations.





Then across a big valley floor that was surrounded with incredible rock formations in every direction. Really awesome!


We got to a point that was relatively out of the wind and in the sun simultaneously so we took the opportunity to eat our packed lunches.

Salami sandwich that we shared, PB&J sandwich that we shared and some m&m’s for snacks. We then jumped off our rocks we were perched on and headed down the trail.

Here is where the trail really changed and got the most awesomest in my opinion.

We were lead down deep into the narrows, with rock walls a few hundred feet tall rising above us on both sides.

The trail was just over shoulder width apart the entire time in here. Sand bottom and just light coming down from above into the narrow little trailway.


We were both really enjoying the trail down here, but were soon back out into the open country.


We then headed back towards the car for the long second half of the hike.



By the end of the day we were both completely exhausted and windblown when we hit the car just before sundown. We made our way back down the dirtroad as the sun was setting and the red rock formations all around us took their turn glowing in the setting sun. we got back and I quickly whipped up a fire while we cooked would be a delicious spaghetti dinner.

The wind was still wicked at this point, so we retreated to the car to eat our dinner. Sounds awful, but we had a good time and were soon in the tent and passed out after cleaning up. We were both really tired from the day and not sure what we would do the next. We knew we didn’t want to wake up early and drive anywhere, so we settled on a total relaxation day of hanging out.