Canyonlands National Park

Canyonlands National Park preserves a series of canyons, mesas and other landforms the confluence of the Colorado River and the Green River on the Colorado Plateau. The park is divided into four ‘districts’: the Island in the Sky, the Needles, the Maze, and the Colorado and Green rivers themselves. The American environmental essayist Edward Abbey, a frequent visitor to Canyonlands, described the Park as “the most weird, wonderful, magical place on earth” and wrote “there is nothing else like it anywhere.” Much like nearby Capitol Reef National Park and Natural Bridges National Monument – both IDA Dark Sky Parks – Canyonlands is in a highly defensible location with little artificial light pollution. The Canyonlands ethos is to make visitors and neighbors alike aware of its rare and fragile dark night sky as a resource worth defending.