Utah’s Grand Canyon – Dead Horse Point State Park is perhaps Utah’s most spectacular state park. Towering 2,000 feet directly above the Colorado River, the mesa that is Dead Horse Point provides breathtaking views of the canyon country of southeastern Utah and the pinnacles and buttes of Canyonlands National Park.
The Legend of Dead Horse Point
Dead Horse Point is a peninsula of rock atop sheer sandstone cliffs. The peninsula is connected to the mesa by a narrow strip of land called the neck. There are many stories about how this high promontory of land received its name.
According to one legend, around the turn of the century the point was used as a corral for wild mustangs roaming the mesa top. Cowboys rounded up these horses, herded them across the narrow neck of land and onto the point. The neck, which is only 30-yards-wide, was then fenced off with branches and brush. This created a natural corral surrounded by precipitous cliffs straight down on all sides, affording no escape. Cowboys then chose the horses they wanted and let the culls or broomtails go free. One time, for some unknown reason, horses were left corralled on the waterless point where they died of thirst within view of the Colorado River, 2,000 feet below.
Park Info
Hours: 6:00 a.m. – 10:00 p.m.
Holiday Closures: Visitor Center is closed Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Day ca.
Fees: $20 per car, $10 per motorcycle.
Dead Horse Point State Park offers picnic areas, camping facilities, restrooms, visitor center, gift shop, sewage disposal, interpretive trail, hiking, and summer evening programs. Directions: Nine miles northwest of Moab on US 191 and then 23 miles southwest on Utah 313 to the end of the highway.
Visit the official State Park website for entrance fees and information: https://stateparks.utah.gov/parks/dead-horse/
