There’s no better town situated for fun, outdoor adventure, and national parks than Moab, Utah. In fact, it’s the gateway for both Arches and Canyonlands national parks.

Both still waters and those running fast and at times furious are plentiful across the National Park System, offering seemingly endless options for where to dip your paddle. You can drift across the reflection of the Tetons on Jackson Lake in Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming, savor some of the West’s best whitewater in Canyonlands and Arches national parks in Utah, or retrace the path of Major John Wesley Powell’s boats with a modern-day adventure down the Green River in Dinosaur National Monument in Colorado and Utah.

Imagine a place in Southern California without freeways, a place without strip malls, smog, or freeway-clogging traffic. Then, imagine a necklace of grassy islands where eagles soar and foxes run, where abandoned olive groves and ripening figs attract ravens. Imagine crystal-blue ocean waters, where the golden Garibaldi swims through swaying kelp forests beneath wave-battered sea caves, undisturbed by cargo ships and oil platforms.

We had come to Canyonlands National Park from North Carolina, Texas, Colorado, Virginia, Missouri, Utah, and California, determined to spend six leisurely days floating the Green and Colorado rivers through one of the most remote, rugged, and majestic regions of the continental United States. Paleontology was not on our itinerary, but geologic history lay in every direction here in southeastern Utah.