Lavender Canyon
Lavender Canyon (Moab, UT)
Lavender Canyon is an easy trail that follows the sandy bottom of Lavender Canyon and heads into Canyonlands National Park. When the trail reaches the National Park boundary there is a locked gate. In order to proceed to the last few miles of the trail within the park, you need to get a day permit and the combination to the lock from the ranger station. When we ran the trail the day permit cost $5.
There are a number of arches located in Lavender Canyon and even a few Indian ruins. The two bigger arches include Cleft Arch near the end of the trail and Caterpillar Arch near the park boundary. The nearby Dry Fork Canyon just outside the park boundary also has an arch or two to check out. This trail is about 15 miles to the park boundary from UT 211 and a few more miles after that point. There is also another route that heads up West Fork Canyon in the park that can be explored. Outside of the park, there is also Dry Fork Canyon and Davis Canyon to check out. If you want to check out this trail with all of the other nearby canyons, plan on spending a very long day or camp overnight outside of Canyonlands.
It appears that Lavender Canyon is not as popular as some of the other trails in the Needles District of Canyonlands, however it is certainly worth checking out if you enjoy searching for arches and Indian ruins.
Please feel free to leave your comments and post your pictures from Lavender Canyon below.
Lavender Canyon KML Track
(Right click and ‘Save Target As’)
Open file above in Google Earth.
