The Needles, Canyonlands

The Needles district lies south of Island in the Sky on the east side of the Colorado River within Canyonlands National Park, Utah, named for the red and white banded sandstone spires that dominate its skyline. Beyond the needles themselves the district holds grabens, potholes and numerous natural arches, most of which are far harder to reach than those in nearby Arches National Park, requiring long backcountry hikes or four wheel drive routes. The district draws roughly a fifth of the park's total visitors, making it the second most visited section after Island in the Sky, and its access road passes Newspaper Rock, a sandstone panel covered in petroglyphs. Well preserved stone and mud dwellings built by Ancestral Puebloans stand throughout the district, evidence of long human use of this eroded sandstone landscape before it became parkland.