State Parks of Utah- Dead Horse Point, what is in the name?

What a beautiful view and what a name 'Dead Horse Point'?! Well, this amazing place is surrounded by the legends of ghostly horses and cruel cowboys. The point, a narrow neck of the land which is as wide as just the road was once gated with the horses corralled by the cowboys who never came back for some unknown reason. The horses were trapped with no way out on a high mesa, without water and food they all died! Long later people who found the remains of these many unfortunate horses named this overlook- Dead Horse Point!

View from Dead Horse Point

With the gruesome history and stunning view of the Colorado river the place became popular and declared as a state park. The landscape is similar to that of Canyonlands National Park which is located adjacent in the south. The park has a loop trail along the cliffs providing different views of the river and canyons around. 

The Dead Horse

Dead Horse Point overlook is 2,000ft above the Colorado river (6,000ft asl) and is one of the spectacular and most photographed views of Utah. Also one can see the breathtaking vistas of Canyonlands national park. Most interesting is the haunting 'dead horse' lying in the valley beside the river! Do you see it in the picture above? I have the close up on the right! Amazing huh?

I hiked the whole trail and I found the East Rim provides the best view. And so East Rim has much hiker-traffic and rest of the park is mostly deserted. West Rim trail mostly goes through the wooded area with short detours to viewpoints above the not-so-awesome side canyons. From the visitor center one could take East or West rim hikes or drive directly to the view point. Mountain biking trails are available too. Restrooms and campsites (for a fee) are available in the park. The park is open year around and has a $10 day use entrance fee per vehicle. To reach the park drive from US-191 then take US-313 which ends at the state park. It is an hour drive from the nearest town Moab on US-191.

View from Dead Horse Point

Few miles of diversion on the way to Canyonlands leads to Dead Horse Point. Though the landscape is similar to Canyonlands National Park, the view of Colorado river is spectacular here. 

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Related articles-
Canyonlands National Park, A Forbidding landscape!
Escalante Petrified Forest State Park, Utah
Capitol Reef National Park in Utah
Goblin Valley of Utah
American South-West: A road trip
State Parks of Utah

This post is linked to Skywatch Friday.

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Scrapbook- A Travel Blog by Kusum Sanu is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.