This National Park In Utah Has Some Of The Southwest's Most Vibrant Canyon Views

Like Arches National Park ... only better and less crowded? That's Canyonlands National Park, according to the many Redditors who sing its praises — before others jump into the forum thread to shush them for giving away the secret. Canyonlands' Island in the Sky, a vast mesa circled by a scenic drive with multiple stunning overlooks, has even been compared to the Grand Canyon for sheer majesty and scale. It's surprising, then, that it's both the largest and the least-visited of Utah's Mighty 5 National Parks, which include Arches, Capitol Reef, Bryce Canyon, and Zion.

If you hike the 0.6 miles to Mesa Arch to catch the sunrise (pictured), you won't be alone, as it's on every outdoor photographer's bucket list. But on most other hikes in this park, you are likely to enjoy some elbow room, or even solitude, as Canyonlands receives only half the annual visitors Arches does. And although its scenic drives make the park accessible to non-hikers, its best trails tend to be remote, like those in the region known as The Needles, where striped sandstone spires reach skyward and the best views can only be experienced by getting off the pavement.

While most of Canyonlands is remote and can be daunting to explore, the beauty of Island in the Sky is the accessibility of its 34-mile loop along Grand View Drive. You can experience this park's soul-restoring beauty in full, with multiple short hikes. Canyonlands shines in the shoulder seasons, with spring bringing wildflowers and fall glorious hiking weather. But many visitors claim to love the winter views with a dusting of snow, despite some roads and trails being closed. Summertime can be trickier, with temperatures over 100 degrees and occasional monsoons.

As you pass the Visitor Center, the views begin, and each is unique. As one Tripadvisor visitor writes, you'll encounter "so much variety during your visit that you will anxiously await your next stop." At aptly named Grand View Point, you'll look over an intricate maze of deeply etched canyons that resemble an eerily silent city of bright orange skyscrapers — except that it's vaster than any city you could ever imagine, marching on and on toward the horizon.

The view from the next spot, Buck Canyon Overlook, is equally unreal, with a series of mesas and canyons whose complicated geometry makes it seem as if the earth's surface is pixilating and dissolving before your eyes in the sunlight like a giant, flickering hologram — only the distant, snow-capped mountains keep you from feeling you could fall off the edge of the known universe here. Looking at Earth from space, astronaut Edward Gibson said, "You see how diminutive your life and concerns are compared to other things In the universe ... It allows you to have inner peace." That's called the Overview Effect, and you'll feel it here. 

For those who like their outdoors rugged and their views hard-earned, there is the section of the park called The Needles, with its dense forests of mighty sandstone spires. You can take a thrilling, 4x4 jeep tour with white-knuckle drop-offs over technical terrain, and hike to visit places you can't get to any other way. Or, you can DIY it and drive to Elephant Hill for a day hike or backpacking trip to Druid Arch. Watching the setting sun slant through this formation that looks exactly like a crumbling temple is a soulful and mystical rite of passage. "Probably my favorite National Park experience in Utah," one backpacker Redditor in the r/NationalParks forum wrote. "I travel mostly solo, and sitting beneath Druid Arch, alone in it's hidden sanctuary, after challenging myself on the series of scrambles through Elephant Canyon, will always be a highlight of my life."

To experience The Maze, you'll need to commit to an overnight excursion, driving many hours to a trailhead, or taking a jet boat up the Colorado, with a pickup at the same spot for the end of your loop hike. Water sources are scarce here, even for the desert, so you'll be carrying a lot of water as you climb, but the chance to see views of red iron-striped canyons glowing under a purple sky, then climbing down to gawk up at these same towers from below, experiencing the landscape from all angles, makes it all worthwhile.

If mobility issues are a concern, you can add another sleeper hit, Dead Horse Point State Park, to your itinerary. Next door to Canyonlands, the uncrowded park's accessible viewpoints overlook locations you may recognize from movies and TV shows like "Mission: Impossible," "Westworld," and "Thelma and Louise."