Welcome to Travel Tuesday! We’ve left Arches National Park and are on to the next one — Canyonlands National Park! The park rangers here were super nice and mapped out how we could best approach the limited time we had to explore, so we started off with Upheaval Dome!
Upheaval Dome Hike in Canyonlands National Park
Distance: 1.5 miles (out + back)
Elevation: 301 feet
Difficulty: Moderate
Duration: 30 minutes
Trailhead Address: 38.4263, -109.9261 (38Ā° 25ā² 34.7ā³N 109Ā° 55ā² 34ā³W)
Parking: Lot available; $30 for admission to the park (free if you have the annual interagency pass)
This trail overall is pretty short but fairly steep. The hike will give you a great view of a mile-wide, 1000-foot crater that’s considered to be a geological mystery of sorts, as it doesn’t look anything like the rest of the terrain in Canyonlands National Park.
There are a number of theories as to its origin, including the fact that the dome was formed by a hidden volcano…or that it originated back when this was actually covered by an inland sea that eventually evaporated and left a salt deposit behind, gradually hardening into sandstone as layers of sediment built on top of it.
However, the most recent theory is that a meteorite struck ~60 million years ago, leading to the dome and the resulting surrounding rocks.
The indentations help a lot with getting the right footing!
The cairns make the trail pretty easy to follow and you may need to do a little bit of rock scrambling, but overall, it’s a pretty easy hike! There isn’t much shade, so make sure you bring water, sunglasses, a hat, and wear SPF!
- Have you ever visited Canyonlands National Park?
- What do you think caused this formation?
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Great information and lots of facts! Quarantine has me really wanting to get outdoors :)
I’m with you there–I really miss traveling. Hopefully we can again sometime later this year!!
I love Utah, but I haven’t made it to Canyonlands yet! It looks like an awesome hike! Thanks for the tips!
Oo, I hope you get to go sometime! It’s a gorgeous park (and nowhere near as crowded as Grand Canyon was, so that was super nice :P )!
I surprisingly have never made it to Utah and I am from the U.S.! So many beautiful national parks there that I need to explore, including this one!
Oo, I hope you get to go sometime!! I never made it to Utah until last year, but it has a bunchhhh of gorgeous parks!!
This hike looks amazing! I love the stark rocks, they look so otherworldly!
It really did! :] This was a really fun hike! :]
I read a lot about this place, but have never been there. Photos are very inspiring. Thanks for sharing! I look forward to the time when we can again travel freely!
So do I–fingers crossed that it can happen again (safely) sometime later this year!
We visited Upheaval Dome as well in 2018. I’m going with the meteorite theory, but what do I know? LOL
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haha, I don’t know any better either so I’m going with that one as well! :P