Dead Horse Point State Park

We enjoy visiting state parks in addition to national parks; they are often just as nice, and less busy.

One such was Dead Horse Point State Park near Moab, Utah.

On how the park got its name, quoting from the website:

Dead Horse Point is a peninsula of rock atop sheer sandstone cliffs. The peninsula is connected to the mesa by a narrow strip of land called the neck. There are many stories about how this high promontory of land received its name.

According to one legend, around the turn of the century, the point was used as a corral for wild mustangs roaming the mesa top. Cowboys rounded up these horses, herded them across the narrow neck of land and onto the point. The neck, which is only 30-yards-wide, was then fenced off with branches and brush. This created a natural corral surrounded by precipitous cliffs straight down on all sides, affording no escape. Cowboys then chose the horses they wanted and let the culls or broomtails go free. One time, for some unknown reason, horses were left corralled on the waterless point where they died of thirst within view of the Colorado River, 2,000 feet below.

A cow by a sign on the way to the park:

More cows:

The Dead Horse Point State Park sign:

A little lending library by the visitor center: