Dead Horse Point State Park - Utah
Posted by: 
linkys
N 38° 31.235 W 109° 43.920
12S E 610536 N 4264338
Isolated park situated 2,000 feet directly above the canyons and mazes of the Colorado River where some horses were supposedly corralled, only to die of thirst while in sight of the water in the river below.
Waymark Code: WM7NW9
Location: Utah, United States
Date Posted: 11/15/2009
Views: 13
From the Utah State Parks 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."
Website Link
This is the main reason most people visit the park, which can be done in an easy day trip from Moab. Rvers and tenters can overnight at its excellent campground and experience the park at dusk and dawn. Its in the Utah desert so it can be very hot in the summer, making the spring and fall the best times to visit.
The narrow neck of land separating the point from the mesa. It's one of those, you've got to have been there to have appreciated it, places.
The view from the end of the point, that's the Colorado River some 2,000 feet below in the goosenecks.
