Confluence Overlook Trail, Canyonlands National Park
Canyonlands, the largest of Utah’s five national parks, is neatly split into thirds by the intersection of the Green and the Colorado Rivers. Both rivers have carved thousand-foot-deep canyons through the high surrounding desert, and the view of their confluence at the center of the park is one of Canyonlands’ most impressive sights.
Both of the famous rivers have now been largely tamed by a series of dams built over the last sixty years, but from this prospective one can still see the same wild scene that John Wesley Powell saw during his historical voyage down the Green and Colorado Rivers in 1869. In July of that year, while his party was camped on the north side of the confluence, Powell and one of his men climbed above the rivers to a point just south of the present day overlook trail. In the following passage, first printed in Scribner’s Monthly in 1875, Powell describes what he saw:
From the north-west came the Green in a narrow, winding
gorge. From the north-east came the Grand [Colorado] through a canyon that
seemed, from where we stood, bottomless.... Wherever we looked there was a
wilderness of rocks-deep gorges where the rivers are lost below cliffs, and
towers, and pinnacles, and ten thousand strangely carved forms in every
direction, and beyond them mountains blending with the clouds.
From the trailhead the path immediately drops into Big Spring Canyon and
then climbs up the other side. This is really the only strenuous part of the
route, but it doesn’t last long. Big Spring Canyon is only 120 feet deep
at this point. After leaving Big Spring Canyon the trail meanders pleasantly
across the open desert for another 3.1 miles before crossing a jeep road at
the northern end of another shallow canyon called Devils Lane. After another
0.7 mile the trail crosses the road again as the road doubles back into
Cyclone Canyon. At the point where the trail meets the jeep road the second
time you will see another spur road branching off to the west. The trail
continues down this road.
After walking west on the spur road for 0.6 miles you will come to a dead end, where there is a small outhouse and a parking area for jeeps. A Park Service sign points the way to the trail that will lead you the last 0.5 mile to the overlook point.
The Colorado River
After seeing the rivers from the overlook point, many hikers feel a
great urge to descend into the canyon to the shore of the Colorado. There
are at least two ways to do this. Three if you include Powell’s route, but
I would hardly recommend his way down. It is quite exposed and requires some
rock climbing skills. (Amazingly, Powell did it with only one arm! He had
lost his right arm 7 years earlier in the Civil War.)
The easiest way to get to the Colorado River is on the Lower Red Lake Canyon Trail. This trail begins 2.4 miles further south on the road into Cyclone Canyon and ends at the river 3.6 miles below the confluence. (See page 178 for more information on this trail.)
For the adventurous there is another route to the Colorado River that departs from the northern end of Cyclone Canyon. Return to the point where the Overlook Trail crosses the Cyclone Canyon jeep road and follow the road north for 0.5 mile. The road starts out heading almost due north, and then swings around to the east. Just after the turn to the east you will see the beginning of a drainage that heads off in a northwesterly direction towards the river. You can follow this drainage all the way to the Colorado River. The route involves about 1.5 miles of off-trail hiking, but many hikers have gone before you and the way is clearly marked by cairns. The route becomes very steep as you approach the water and some scrambling is necessary, but the danger is minimal if you are careful to follow the cairns. Once you reach the Colorado it is another 0.9 mile walk downstream to the confluence itself.
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