Needles is the definition of the middle of nowhere. When you are standing at Grand View overlook at the Island in the Sky, gazing south over canyonlands, awed by the vast expanse of uninhabitable, viciously eroded land, wondering what it must be like to live down there, go to Needles District because that is what you see in the distance.
Leaving south on the only highway in Moab, abruptly exit west 30 or 40 miles out of town, and tunnel through a forest of cottonwood trees into the otherworld of ancient temples and gargantuan rock formations called Needles.
Stop at national archeological site, Newspaper Rock, a petroglyphs panel etched in sandstone that records approximately 2,000 years of early human activity. Scholars are undecided as to their meaning, perhaps storytelling, doodling, hunting magic, clan symbols or ancient graffiti. We’re pretty sure the history of Santa, the Scorpion King and the true inventor of the wheel is documented here.
Keep going another 10 miles through Temple City and you’ll find BLM camping at The Super Bowl in the Indian Creek Unit of the Bears Ears National Monument, just 5 miles shy of the Canyonlands. Here, the night sky is so dark the number of stars visible is insane because there is no sign of human civilization for miles except for Betty and that weird guy camping in a van you passed a mile back, who I’m sure is fine and just a crack climber, but we locked the doors anyway.
Choosing Campsite 12, honoring birthday weekend with a 1 and a 2, we broke out two meals in a steam bag and in 5 minutes had dinner at 8, watched the sunset, spent 90 minutes making yellow split pea soup, then gazed at the planetarium filled night sky until falling into an exhausted bed.
After a hearty potato, ham and egg birthday boy breakfast, we set out for Needles, the other Canyonlands park. It was a busy morning there with only one ranger on duty and a line of backcountry campers trying to buy their permits. The computers are down. Most of the park rangers are out ‘sick’ because the weather is so nice for climbing. There is no cell phone service, but there is a pay phone circa 1970 style in the lobby.
We surveyed the choices for driving, hiking and biking and decided to go with the Open Colorado Overlook – a 15 mile round trip ride that Ranger Kyle had just rode on his bike the night before and was encouraging a family in a 4WD Subaru to drive this morning.
The first 3 miles were tame. Just like the first three miles of the Arches primitive trail. First came hard pack, then softer, then came deep sand graduating into periods of broken rock and slickrock.
At the last mile it was all rock and no roll so we parked the Comos to make the final passage to the overlook. Ranger Kyle needs to seriously recalibrate his opinion on what a Subaru can do. Unless it’s been lifted 18 inches, fitted with giant tires, and sometimes mistaken for a Monster Truck, it isn’t going here. Hopefully that young family ignored Ranger Kyle’s advice or the kids are super stoked to walk the seven miles back to the visitor center to use that nifty pay phone to call for a back country tow.
After abandoning the Como’s, we rock scrambled a mile to the Colorado overlook. After an appropriate display of awe, we back tracked rock to bike to rough trail to sand trail to visitor center. The Colorado looked muddy and slow. It did not inspire us to book a rafting adventure on the Colorado out of Moab. In fairness, it is a long river and maybe it moves faster somewhere else but we hear that it is muddy pretty much everywhere. The crystal clear Tuolumne river in California with class 5’s it ain’t – raft that one instead.
Looking to get a better view of the Needles rock formations, we lumbered around the scenic drive. We did see some odd looking mushroom-like slickrock formations, which got Sheri’s blood running, but the Needles stayed off in the distance. It looked like most folks drove to this middle of nowhere place to buy a permit and head into the back country. Since that was not in the cards for us, we guided Betty off the sort-of scenic drive and onto the definitely-an-exit road and flew back towards civilization.