Living In The Wild, Wild West... A Canyon Rim Dream Hike

Grab your jacket and come join Bobbie on an amazing canyon rim hike! If you are acrophobic, take a Valium now...


Goldie is boondocked about eight miles from Dead Horse State Park. It's one of those "island in the sky" places, located on a far reaching elevated peninsula that overlooks (seemingly) the entirety of Utah... clear to the earth's gentle, feminine curve. 

"Dead Horse" is a good Zane Grey Western type name, don't you think? One that conjures a mental image. There are so many image provoking names in the apocalyptic desolation of the wild west; names like, Bloody Basin, Hells Backbone, and Tombstone, to mention a few.

As the story goes, some rancher, or maybe it was rustlers, decided that the tip of this particular peninsula lent itself to be a natural corral, of sorts. Its vertical walls with thousand foot drops were better than any barbed wire fence. There is a sliver of an isthmus preceding the rather bulbous landmass tip, so a pile of dead twisted cedar trunks was all that was needed to pen horses in the corral. Satisfied his stock was secured, the cowboy rode off to tend to other cowboy business... probably stealing more horses. 

Well, they were "secure" all right... still there when he came back. But they were dead as roadkill, having died a desiccating death from lack of water. If it doesn't rain enough to fill the plentiful "pothole" tanks, you are in deep doo doo... be you horse, or be you human. 

A rather artistic, apostrophe shaped tank... carved by the swirl of runoff. 

Standing on the edge now... don't look down.

We jumped this divide between two boulders only to realize later that the boulder we were standing on was totally undercut and separated. You can see the daylight, fortunately it was wedge in place securely enough to handle both our weight, and stupidity :))

As you can see, rocks do slough off from time to time...

After rounding the bend, we looked back and realized this cliff was also undercut. Sheesh, what's a person got to do to get a view around here? Risk their life?

Pothole "water tanks"

Some are quite deep, as you can see... on the edge of an abyss of nothingness.

Now that's a pretty postcard, eh Boonie? (be careful now, as that is a trick question)

I asked Bobbie to go stand on that outcropping rock so I could take her picture. She wouldn't do it.

This is why you can't trust rocks on the edge out here.

A gooseneck in the mighty Colorado River... Not so mighty in the fall.

Potash ponds, with the snowless  La Salle mountains in the background

They build these rock fences in the tourist areas... in case Junior gets away from you.

I hope you enjoyed our hike. We are packing up today... moving a few miles down the road to an a-maze-ing place we have yet to set foot nor tire. I sincerely hope you stay tuned for what we might find there. 

As always, bookmarking your future "must see" places in the wild wild west...
Mark and Bobbie.