More than four times the size of nearby Arches National Park, with less than half the visitation, Canyonlands National Park abounds with backcountry opportunities: mountain biking, backpacking, canyoneering, four-wheeling, and boating. More than any other desert park, visitors come to Canyonlands for solitude and adventure.
According to archaeologists, nomadic peoples traveled here as early as 9,000 years ago. The region was briefly farmed by ancestral Puebloans (formerly called Anasazi), whose rock art is still visible there today. Rugged and hard-to-access geography helped preserve the area until the 19th century, when an army of uranium prospectors built hundreds of miles of roads in search of valuable minerals. Although the miners eventually departed, their roads remain...