Dead Horse Point State Park and Driving the Gemini Bridges 4WD Road Back…

Dead Horse Point State Park is said to be one of Utah's most spectacular state parks as well as having one of the most photographed scenic vistas in the world at Dead Horse Point. After visiting this gem of a state park we can only agree with this assessment. Dead Horse point is over 2,000 feet above the Colorado River and looking out over the canyon and all the geologic features we could only be in awe…

What took millions of years of geologic activity to create can be enjoyed by visiting this scenic park. The legend of Dead Horse Point centers around a corral for wild mustangs either being abandoned or simply not wanting to leave the point. As a result the horses left out on this narrow neck of land apparently died of thirst all within view of the water in the Colorado River some 2,000 feet below them. 

Dead Horse Point is is at an elevation of around 6,000 feet making it much cooler than Moab, Utah. There are some trails that we took in order to not miss one single angle of the panorama below. There are also many miles of biking trails used heavily by mountain bikers. We brought our lunch and ate on the patio of the elevated deck at the visitors center. What a great venue for lunch as we looked over the majestic canyons below with the peaks of the 12.000 foot high La Sal Mountains in the distance.

An “off the wall” reason we wanted to see Dead Horse Point is that a part of the movie Thelma and Louise was filmed here in 1991. The final scene where they drive their car off a cliff was filmed right here! We had this joke when we started talking about early retirement and full timing in an RV. The joke was that if we run out of money before we die we can always do a Thelma and Louise… and now we know where it all took place. Fortunately we have not run out of money yet…

After lunch we took a chance and headed down the 4 Wheel Drive road called Gemini Bridges. Our CRV is 4 wheel drive but we have highway tires so we were especially cautious as we drove down the road. There was a lot of beautiful scenery on the way to Gemini Bridges. The two bridges were not obvious until we were closer and looked down… Wow! What’s really cool is that we were able to walk across them all the while being extremely careful since it was a long way down to the bottom

We continued on down the rocky road which has been tempered with some rock-grinding equipment. In one spot we passed what is called Gooney Bird Rock which looked more like Foghorn Leghorn to me…This 9.6 miles was not much of a 4 wheel drive road until we got to the end where we climbed up several 100’s of feet on a very rough road only to drive on a one-lane road perched on the edge of a steep mountain. Sharon was a bit nervous and couldn’t look over the edge .  If she had she would have seen the highway hundreds of feet below. If we had encountered this rough stretch of road in the beginning we likely would have never have continued… but what an adventure we would have missed!