Near the roof of Canyonlands National Park on the Squaw Canyon-Big Spring Canyon Trail/Kurt Repanshek

It wasn't much more than a goat path. Or, more appropriate for the setting, a desert bighorn sheep path. With the wind swirling about us and a lapis lazuli sky overhead, we played connect-the-dots with the small stacked cairns that looped across the sandstone amphitheater and took us higher and higher. This was Canyonlands National Park at its best.

Standing high up in a sandstone notch that connected the Squaw Canyon Trail with the Big Spring Canyon Trail, our eyes roamed over the landscape splayed out before us that showcased the topography and held the inhabitants of the Colorado Plateau.  

Fremont's mahonia was lending its fragrance and yellow blossoms to the Needles District, canyon wrens were serenading anyone within ear reach, and a variety of lizards -- western whiptail, sagebrush, among others -- were darting frenetically about. About us in every direction were sweeps of Cedar Mesa sandstone in shades of cream and white and red and buff. Far off to the east, the La Sal Range was draped with the shrinking remains of winter's snow.

It is both an incredibly alluring, and brutally demanding, and occasionally deadly, landscape. They call it "Canyonlands" National Park, but it's more than just canyons. There are plateaus and grabens -- curious landscapes that have sunk as if on an elevator going down while the surrounding landscape remains in place -- narrow passageways through rock, meadows, and buttes that tower above the Colorado and Green rivers as they flow through this arid place.

Bates Wilson, the long-ago superintendent of neighboring Arches National Park, lobbied his Interior Department bosses to establish the park, and he finally got some traction in 1961 when then-Interior Secretary Stewart Udall saw the wisdom of such a move. Three years later, President Johnson signed the requisite paperwork to establish Canyonlands National Park.

It's a wild and wooly landscape, truly befitting its Western location in southeastern Utah. Slightly more than 337,500 acres, and with efforts to add even more landscape to the park, Canyonlands plays bigger than it lies. The park is cut into four districts -- Island in the Sky in the north, Needles in the South, the Maze and Horseshoe Canyon off to the west, and the river district of the Colorado and Green rivers. You'll spend hours of windshield time traveling between the three land-based districts, and days or weeks floating the rivers, but the effort isn't wasted.

The sprawling view from Grand View Overlook in the Island in the Sky District/Rebecca Latson

My wife and I had visited Horseshoe Canyon in the past, and we found ourselves back there this past April to introduce my one brother and his wife to Canyonlands. Not easy to reach, with 30 miles of dirt road that sometimes rattles your teeth with its washboard to navigate to the trailhead, the canyon harbors what arguably is the greatest rock art display in the world, the Great Gallery. While that 200-foot-or-so-long collection of pictographs is the main attraction of the canyon, there are at least three other panels of rock art that spur conversation into what stories the artists were telling. Also found here are remains of the landscape's history with cattle, and even some fossilized dinosaur tracks.

The Island in the Sky District offers perhaps the most sweeping views of Canyonlands, taking in 1,000+ feet below the channels cut by the Green and Colorado rivers as you gaze south. But the Needles District offers the most intimate connection with the park's mesmerizing geology. Ruddy-and-cream hued pinnacles, turrets, and stacks of sandstone pancakes surround you, tight slots await your passage, and upper elevations showcase the roof of the park.

Blooms of Fremont Mahonia in Canyonlands National Park/Kurt Repanshek

Closer to the paved road that brings you into the Needles District with its visitor center and 27-site campground you'll find the remains of Cowboy Camp tucked into a sandstone alcove. Used from the late 1800s until 1975 by cowboys who tried to keep track of thousands of cattle roaming across 1.8 million acres, the stretch of alcove at the area known as Cave Spring has been used much, much, much longer for shelter. Pictographs on the walls and ceilings date to roughly 1,000 years ago when Ancestral Puebloans roamed this landscape.

The campground is one of the best in the National Park System. Sites with tent pads, picnic tables, and fire rings are set about rock outcrops and offer a good measure of privacy, the few sites mean that come day's end quiet reigns, and the incredible darkness that arrives after sundown can lead to fantastic star shows. 

During the spring and fall season the bathroom has flush toilets and running water, and outside there's a sink where you can clean dishes. The warm/hot sun means that those with solar showers can wash off the day's dust.

Hand pictographs at Cave Spring alcove in Canyonlands National Park/Kurt Repanshek

A footpath takes you past these alcoves and by "gardens" of Big Basin Sagebrush, Snakeweed, Fourwing Saltbrush, Greasewood, Rubber Rabbitbrush, Gambel's Oak, Netleaf hackberry, and the seemingly ever-present Fremont mahonia, which blooms cheerfully in April. Two ladders take you to the top of these sandstone outrops, offering panoramic views of this section of the Needles. Follow the cairns and you'll wander past potholes that come to life when they fill with water, prickly pear, and Claret cup cactus, and other vegetation that has figured out how to survive here.

Claret Cup Cactus in bloom in the Needles District of Canyonlands National Park/Kurt Repanshek

We enjoyed this landscape for a too-short two days, but we made the most of it. The Squaw Canyon-Big Spring Canyon loop is a bit more than 7 miles; we wandered up the Lost Canyon Trail a bit to get the view from the roof of the Needles District, a sidetrip that grew our entire day hike to 8 miles.

The section where cairns guide you across a slickrock amphitheater to the Big Spring Canyon Trail might prompt those skittish of exposure to backtrack, but if you adopt an "easy as it goes" approach it's not too daunting.

What can be daunting is the season you tackle this hike, or others, in the Needles. The temperature crept into the mid-70s during our hike, which doesn't seem too terrible, but with full exposure under the sun and heat reflecting off the sandstone, it was a warm day on the trail. Tackling it in the heart of summer, when temperatures can rise beyond 100 degrees Fahrenheit, could be foolish for those unaccustomed to and unprepared for the heat.

Canyonlands is an overlooked and underestimated park, no doubt due to its ruggedness. It can be intimidating. And for those not willing or unable to wander far from their rigs, it can remain a windshield park with a few short hikes tossed in.

But the wonders are revealed if you have the time and ability to explore. Spring, at least into early May, is a great season to visit, as is the fall, from mid-October into November when the temperatures cool off. 

There are two campsites: the 27-site Needles Campground that allows you to reserve a site in spring or fall up to six months in advance of your adventure, and the Island in the Sky Campground with its 12 first-come, first-served sites. Both campgrounds are open year-round, though in the winter months you need to bring water in with you, as well as wood if you want a campfire.

If you're coming from a distance to visit Canyonlands, plan enough time to explore Arches National Park next door and perhaps even Natural Bridges National Monument 110.5 miles to the south.