9/6/12 - Dead Horse Point SP

There's a legend that in the early 1900s cowboys rounded up wild mustangs on the mesa, herded them to the point and fenced off the 30 yard-wide neck for a corral.  They chose the horses they wanted and left the rest corralled on the waterless point, 2000 feet above the Colorado River, where they died of thirst. 


I don't much like this story, but it's what the park publishes in the brochure. 

I suppose it's plausible.


I decided to check out the other legend.

Much simpler--it was named by early Mormon pioneers for a rock formation at the base of the plateau that looks like a dead white horse lying on its side.  Looking at my own pictures, I do see what they mean--although I didn't see it when we were on the rim. 

Can you see it?  

Which story do you believe?

Or maybe I should ask, which legend will you repeat?

There's a trail along the east rim of the canyon just outside the Visitor Center.  George took off without me, but I found him.

We drove down to the Point, and walked around the whole rim, up to the neck and back again.  The views down into Canyonlands NP are spectacular!

 

        

Since we visited this park, I've got the chorus to the America song A Horse with No Name stuck in my head.  Can I remember more than that?  No, of course not!

 

More pictures at Dead Horse Point State Park