Cave Spring Trail in Utah: LAPC

If you decide to walk the short Cave Spring Trail in Canyonlands National Park, you will be rewarded with unique encounters with history and nature.

The 0.6 mile loop trail takes you past a narrow cowboy camp tucked under a rock ledge. Camps like these were in use from the late 1800s to 1975. The Scorup-Sommerville Cattle Company managed as many as 10,000 cattle in this region. Cowboys lived a life on the range and artifacts from their outdoor camp remain at this site.

This site was prized due to the fact that a spring existed here. Rainwater percolated through the sandstone over this site and carved out alcoves.

Sites such as these hosted cowboys in the recent past, but Native Americans lived here thousands of years before them. Their rock art can be seen in parts of the cave. The spring is considered a sacred place to descendants of these people.

If you follow the trail farther, you’ll come to two narrow ladders that take you up to a slickrock sandstone plateau.

Follow the rock cairns marking the trail…

to get stunning 360-degree views of the Canyonlands.

The trail drops down into another narrow alcove and continues to the parking area. Cave Spring Trail isn’t long, but it packs a lot into a short distance.

I was especially impressed by the many interesting formations in the rock along this trail. Cave Spring Trail, and the nearby AMAZING petroglyphs of Newspaper Rock, made this one of our favorite stops on our trip to Utah’s National Parks.

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge (LAPC) – Narrow