The park is 5362 acres, and is at an elevation of 5900 feet. It is located on Highway 313, 18 miles from Moab and near the entrance to Canyonlands National Park (Island in the Sky district). We had not heard of Dead Horse Point previously, but stopped because we had a little time to spare before heading down to our campsite in Long’s Canyon. Because we didn’t know what to expect, we were blown away by the view! This viewpoint surpassed all the others we had seen at Canyonlands…. the view was postcard perfect. The Colorado River looked as green as I’d ever seen it, as it wound through breathtaking redrock cliffs and plateaus. You could really see how the area was laid out… you could follow the different canyons with your eyes, and look down onto various mesas. We saw below us a jeep road that looked like it would be fun to drive, which turned out to be the White Rim Road (see Canyonlands journal entry).

Looking down to the river, I thought how great it would be to raft down it. Edward Abbey wrote a great chapter in Desert Solitaire called Down the River. It turns out he was one of the last people to raft down the Colorado River before the Glen Canyon Dam was built, changing the river and canyon forever:

"Down the river we drift in a kind of waking dream, gliding beneath the great curving cliffs with their tapestries of water stains, the golden alcoves, the hanging gardens, the seeps, the springs where no man will ever drink, the royal arches in high relief and the amphitheatres shaped like seashells. A sculptured landscape mostly bare of vegetation – earth in the nude." -- Edward Abbey

The park has a Visitor Center where you can learn more, a 21 unit campground, a museum, and a picnic area with grills. I think the campground takes reservations at (435)259-2614. There are ten miles of hiking trails that wind past sheer cliffs. We paid $6 for a day use pass.