Grand View Point Trail: Canyonlands' Best Rim Walk

The mesa you’re standing on drops 1,000 feet on three sides.

Island in the Sky is a massive, flat-topped mesa sitting high above the rest of Canyonlands National Park. On the north, a narrow neck of rock connects it to the Colorado Plateau. On every other side, the land simply ends. The Grand View Point trail runs 1 mile from the parking area to the southern tip of this mesa, and what you see from that tip is the largest canyon panorama in Utah.

What Island in the Sky Actually Is

Most people picture canyons as places you stand above and look down. The Grand Canyon is the classic example. Island in the Sky works differently. You’re standing on a flat mesa roughly 1,000 feet above the canyon floor, and the terrain on all sides drops into an interconnected system of canyons carved by two rivers. The whole thing is more like a raised island of plateau rock surrounded by eroded lowland.

The mesa is about 6,000 feet above sea level. The canyon floor sits roughly 1,000 feet below you. The Colorado Plateau stretches out beyond that to the horizon. When you reach Grand View Point, you’re at the southernmost tip of this mesa, and the land falls away in three directions at once.

The Trail

The trailhead sits at the end of the main Island in the Sky road, about 12 miles south of the visitor center. The parking area has pit toilets but no water, so fill your bottles before you leave the visitor center.

The trail is 1 mile one-way, mostly flat. The first 0.75 miles follow the rim westward before curving south. You’re walking on a mix of slickrock and sandy trail, with the canyon dropping off to your left. The rim is unguarded here. There are no railings, no chains, no barriers. The drops start at a few hundred feet and get deeper as you move south.

The last 0.25 miles narrow noticeably. The mesa pinches down to a point, and the canyon falls away on both sides simultaneously. Walking this section feels different from the earlier stretch. You can see the terrain dropping toward the river junction ahead of you, and there’s nothing between you and 1,000-foot air on either side.

The final overlook is a flat shelf of rock at the tip of the mesa. This is the view that makes the whole drive worthwhile.

What You Actually See

Two rivers meet roughly 1,000 feet below and a few miles south of where you’re standing. The Green River comes in from the northwest, the Colorado from the northeast. Their confluence, the point where they join into one river, is visible on clear days from the tip of the trail. The rivers look thin from this height, pale ribbons cutting through red-and-orange canyon walls. The scale of the canyons around them makes the rivers themselves look almost incidental.

Turn east. Across the canyon, about 30 miles away, you can see the white-and-orange striped buttes and spires of the Needles district. The Needles is one of Canyonlands’ three main sections, and from Grand View Point it looks exactly like its name suggests: hundreds of fins and towers rising from the canyon floor. You can’t reach the Needles from Island in the Sky without a long drive, but you can see the whole district from here.

Turn west. The Maze, Canyonlands’ most remote district, sits on the far side of the canyon. Almost nobody hikes the Maze. The roads require a high-clearance four-wheel-drive vehicle, and most routes are multi-day backcountry trips. From Grand View Point you see it as a blank, pale expanse of canyon country beyond the rivers, impossibly remote.

The scale here is bigger than Zion. It’s bigger than Bryce. Those parks are beautiful, but you’re mostly looking at formations from below or at eye level. At Grand View Point, you’re looking across terrain. The canyon systems stretch in every direction to the horizon, and there’s enough geological complexity in any single view to spend an hour studying it and still not catch everything.

When to Go

Morning light works best for most of this trail. The canyon walls to the east catch direct light in the first few hours after sunrise, showing the color and texture of the rock. The mesa you’re standing on faces south and west, so afternoon sun lights up those directions well. If you’re combining this with Mesa Arch, do Mesa Arch at sunrise and arrive at Grand View Point around 9-10 a.m. That timing gives you good light on both visits.

Midday in summer is rough. There’s no shade on this trail. Not a tree, not an overhang, nothing. The rock surface radiates heat back up at you. If you’re hiking in June through August, start before 7 a.m. or wait until late afternoon. The sun at noon on the Canyonlands mesa can push air temperatures above 100 degrees Fahrenheit, and the rock surface gets hotter than that.

Spring and fall are the best seasons. March through May and September through November give you mild temperatures and the clearest air. Winter works too. Snow doesn’t fall often at this elevation, and on cold clear days the visibility can be exceptional, sometimes 100 miles or more.

A Full Island in the Sky Day

Grand View Point pairs well with two other stops on the same mesa. Mesa Arch is 5 miles north of the Grand View Point parking area. It’s a small freestanding arch that frames a view of canyon country at sunrise, and it’s one of the most photographed spots in Utah. Hit Mesa Arch first, at sunrise or just after.

Then drive south to Grand View Point. The 2-mile round trip takes 1 to 1.5 hours at a walking pace with time to look around. After that, drive back north to the Upheaval Dome road for the third major stop on the mesa.

Upheaval Dome is a circular geological structure on the northwest part of the mesa, completely different from anything else in Canyonlands. It’s covered in detail in our Upheaval Dome trail guide. The three stops together, Mesa Arch, Grand View Point, and Upheaval Dome, make a full day without any driving off-mesa.

Practical Notes

Canyonlands National Park charges a $35 per-vehicle entrance fee, valid for 7 days. No separate permit or reservation is needed for day hiking Grand View Point. The park entrance is on Highway 313, about 25 miles west of Moab.

Bring more water than you think you need. The standard recommendation for desert hiking is a half-liter per hour of activity in moderate temperatures. In summer, that climbs to a full liter per hour. The trail is short, but there’s no shade and no water anywhere on the mesa past the visitor center. A good hydration system makes a real difference on exposed desert routes like this one.

The Grand View Point parking area is the last stop on the park road. There’s no fee station here and no services. Everything you need, you bring with you.

The view at the tip of the trail is the same one that’s appeared in more Utah photography than almost any other spot in the state. Stand at the southern edge of that rock shelf, look south, and you’re looking at the country where two of the West’s biggest rivers disappear into canyons deep enough to swallow a skyscraper. That view doesn’t require any hiking skill or special equipment. It just requires showing up.

Frequently Asked Questions