Moab without the crowds: a quick guide to the scenic, unpeopled landscape surrounding Utah's Arches and Canyonlands national parks - includes related article on guidebooks and maps to Moab, UT

Sunset, April, 1997 by Jonathan F. King

No visitor to southeastern Utah's two great national parks - Arches and Canyonlands - would call them uncrowded, at least not during the peak seasons of spring and fall. Their spectacular natural beauty has proved a magnet for visitors from every continent and turned the once-sleepy town of Moab into a bustling center of industrial-scale tourism.

But the breathtaking vistas and surreal landforms that have made these parks so popular don't vanish at their boundaries. Hundreds of square miles around Moab are filled with sights as fantastic as those protected within the parks - and are nearly as easy to visit. Anyone with a reliable vehicle, a detailed map, and the energy to hike or bike some slickrock (or just plain rocky) trails can bag a secluded canyon or lonesome vista that Edward Abbey would admire, and be back in town in time for dinner.

Though you might think that driving through this rugged terrain would be restricted to the very few paved roads on the tourist maps, the area is actually crisscrossed with drivable roads (albeit of less than superhighway quality) that can quickly lead you away from the crowds and into some remarkable country. For maximum peace of mind, rent a high-clearance four-wheel-drive vehicle, or just show up in your own Blazer, Cherokee, or Mountaineer. But in truth, all of the graded dirt and gravel roads leading to and through the areas we mention here are passable (cautiously at times) in two-wheel-drive vehicles with decent clearance. More important than four-wheel-drive is a short wheelbase to handle the turns and twists typical of these roads, good gas mileage, and a surplus of drinking water.

THREE ALTERNATIVES TO THE PARKS

Canyon Rims Recreation Area. This vast red rock playground south of Moab is bordered on the east by U.S. Highway 191 and penetrated by several paved roads, including State 211 (which extends to Canyonlands's Needles District) and the Needles Overlook Road. Two campgrounds, Wind Whistle and Hatch Point, provide a convenient base for exploring the area. In fact, you could pass several clays just exploring the terrain near these campgrounds. A short trail departing from Wind Whistle, for example, leads you to the rim of the vast canyon called Harts Draw.

Of the many canyon-rim overlooks here, none is more dramatic than the Anticline Overlook, which is just 7 miles from the Hatch Point Campground and whose graveled access road branches off Needles Overlook Road. Though not the most primitive of the many overlooks within Canyon Rims - Anticline Overlook boasts picnic tables, toilets, a paved walkway, and interpretive signs - you will likely have its incredible vistas all to yourself for as long as you wish to linger. To your left (and far below) is the sinuous course of the Colorado River; to your right, the impressive depths of Kane Creek Canyon. Competing for your attention are the red rock sentinels of the vast Behind-the-Rocks area (described at right), and beyond them the snowy peaks of La Sal Mountains. For a stunning perspective on the Island-in-the-Sky District of Canyonlands National Park, drive to Minor Overlook, which is reached by a graveled spur just half a mile south of Anticline Overlook.

Sand Flats Recreation Area. Just east of Moab is the Slickrock Bike Trail, a beacon for fat-tire enthusiasts worldwide. Sand Flats Road, which accesses this area, continues beyond it for several miles, bisecting the little-known 7,200-acre Sand Flats Recreation Area. Hikers can reach overlooks of deep canyons such as Negro Bill and Mill Creek (both candidates for wilderness preservation), and wander at will through an area of eroded landforms that provides both scenery and solitude. Many of the arches that you can visit here have fanciful names, including Drumstick and Funhouse Ridge.

Behind-the-Rocks. Here's an area where your wheels will carry you only so far ... just far enough for you to take off on foot for a day (or more) of freeform exploration through a 50-square-mile area studded with canyons, mesas, arches, fins, bluffs, and other objects of geologic wonder, as well as numerous petroglyphs and other remnants of long-vanished Anasazi and Fremont Indian cultures.

The area lies southwest of Moab, both north and south of the Colorado River. It's a real geologic crazy quilt: surface features (domes, hoodoos, and all the rest) are carved out of Navajo and Entrada sandstone, while the canyons (Pritchett and Hunter being the most prominent) cut through rock of the Kayenta Formation and Wingate sandstone. Pritchett Canyon is easily reached by driving Kane Creek Boulevard out of Moab until the pavement ends. You can hike Pritchett Canyon to Pritchett Arch and the hidden "doughnut hole" arch called Halls Bridge. Or drive for another 3 miles beyond the Pritchett parking area into Kane Creek Canyon to the entrance to lower Hunter Canyon, which can be hiked for 3 miles until it dead-ends. Then stop and appreciate the canyon's grandeur, its towering (and wonderfully eroded) Wingate sandstone walls, and its intermittent pools of water, which pose a modest challenge to hikers that's more than compensated for by the refreshment they afford toasting toes.