History: How Canyonlands Was Formed

Canyonlands National Park is comprised of a wild array of arches, sandstone pillars, canyon mazes, and scarps.
©2006 National Park Services
The power of the Colorado and
Green rivers carved out the deep chasms
that characterize Canyonlands.

The eerie look of the terrain in Canyonlands National Park caused writer Edward Abbey to describe it as the "most arid, most hostile, most lonesome, most grim, bleak, barren, desolate, and savage quarter of the state of Utah--the best part by far."

Over the 20 million years of its existence, the Colorado River has carried away solid rock from an area the size of Texas and two miles deep. The abrasive power of this sediment, helped by wind, precipitation, and frost, has carved out deep canyons, stark mesas, and high buttes unlike any seen elsewhere on earth.

The remarkable stripes that run through the nearly unbelievable shapes of these figures are the result of the way in which different kinds of stone have resisted the constant aggression of these natural sculpting agents.

The perpendicular landscape of the region was also shaped by underlying deposits of salt. Under great pressure from the rock above, the salt is formed into huge domes that eventually fracture the surface.

History of Canyonlands: Inhabitants and Explorers

In a detached section of the park called Horseshoe Canyon Unit, one can observe pictographs. Archaeologists believe that these life-size pictographs may be 6,000 years old. They do not look like the work of the Anasazi or any of the other people known to have lived in this region, so archaeologists surmise that the pictographs were left by earlier people. No one knows for sure.

Canyonlands National Park was occupied by the Anasazi in the first through fourteenth centuries.
©2006 National Park Services
The Anasazi occupied the area from about the first to 14th centuries,
leaving an abundance of rock art, such as these petroglyphs.

More recent inhabitants of Canyonlands have also left behind reminders of their presence. These people were related to the Anasazi of Mesa Verde in Colorado and Chaco Canyon, a vast pueblo in western New Mexico. In Canyonlands, they farmed and gathered plants. In the Needles area, you can still see a small but well-preserved granary used to store corn 700 years ago.

A glance at the arid landscape of Canyonlands would probably convince visitors that the land is uninhabitable, but clearly the Anasazi and others didn't find it so. It is amazing to wander among the remarkable wilderness and come across the remains of civilizations past. The national park's historical aspect and striking terrain are what attract almost 400,000 visitors every year.