Easter Week Hiking in Moab - Day 4 Chesler Park

[pigburner]

Wednesday, April 16 Needles, Joints, and Toadstools

This was my first time to make it to the Needles District, which has always been just a little too far out of the way on all my previous trips. We planned a long day hike, vacillating between Druid Arch or Chesler Park and the Joint Trail. I was tempted to try to make it to both, but we got a bit of a late start and settled on hiking through Chesler Park to the Joint Trail, exploring around the Joint Trail a little bit, then returning to the trailhead by way of the southern trail from Chesler Park to Elephant Canyon. It made a nice partial loop with some different scenery on the way back. With the exploring in the Joint Trail, it ended up being about a 12-mile day, so we were really looking forward to the burgers, floats, and shakes at Milt's Stop and Eat when we got back to Moab.

The hike is through a wonderland that just left me with a big smile on my face the whole day. A never-ending variety of colors and shapes entertains the eyes in every direction. We followed the trail down into Elephant Canyon, up to the Chesler Park overlook, and across Chesler Park to the Joint Trail. We didn't plan on doing the whole Chesler Park loop, so we just went a little ways into the Joint Trail and had fun exploring some of the joints off the main trail.

View along the trail to Chesler Park

First view of Chesler Park from the Overlook

View into Elephant Canyon through the east wall of Chesler Park

Joint Trail entrance

The girls playing in the joints; I couldn't make it more than the first 10 feet or so into this crack


We returned by way of the south trail from Chesler Park to Elephant Canyon, which was a great choice. It seems I have read the trail back to the overlook can be a sandy slog. With the south trail, you just walk through a gap in the wall of pinnacles on the east side of Chesler Park, drop over a couple small pour-offs, and you are on top of the white sandstone layer that makes up the top of those incredible toadstools that line the sides of Elephant Canyon. A well cairned trail guides you across the white sandstone, eventually turning down into a gap between the toadstools that brings you by a small ruin and eventually to the Elephant Canyon trail. This is a little more primitive trail than the northern trail to the overlook, but was never difficult.

Leaving Chesler Park by the south trail to Elephant Canyon

Cairned trail across the tops of the toadstool layer

Dropping into the gap between the toadstools

Amongst the toadstools

Ruin along the south trail

Reaching Elephant Canyon trail


On the way back to Moab, we had just enough energy for a quick side trip to the Shay Canyon petroglyphs and a stop at Newspaper Rock, to finish out another great day.

Vacuum cleaner man at Shay Canyon

Shay Canyon figures

One of the panels at Shay Canyon