Day 1: View Back Towards the Trailhead

You can read all about this part of my experience if you want, but this was about the point where I (Mike G) decided I was going to do the whole Upheaval Dome trail. After meeting up with the loop portion of the trail things turned considerably more vertical. Basically the trail climbs up, over and back down the other side of the dome which is more like a peninsula when viewed from above. There's even a parking lot at the back of the peninsula where people who are driving around Canyonlands can stop and walk out a bit on the trail. Kind of strange to be "in the middle of nowhere" hiking and biking and then come across a group of tourists carrying pops and just strolling around.

The trail is almost impossible to see in this picture, but the little pile of rocks in the bottom of the picture is a cairn.