White Rim Road in Island in the Sky is one of the park’s most popular jeep roads. Near the entrance, the Shafer Trail will take you to it. It follows a broad bench, lunar white along the edge where the red talus has been stripped to bedrock. For more than 80 miles [128.8 kilometers] it stays above the inner gorge, 1,200 feet [365.8 meters] below the Island, as it meanders through prime desert bighorn sheep country.Northwest of The Maze lies a detached section of the park, the Horseshoe Canyon Unit, entered by a 3.5-mile [5.6-kilometer] trail. You follow an old road into the canyon, then walk up Barrier Creek past some of the continent’s finest prehistoric rock art. At the Great Gallery, ghostly figures painted in red ocher stare through hollow eyes as the centuries pass. Archaeologists believe these life-size pictographs may be more than 3,000, perhaps as much as 6,000, years old.
The Maze Overlook can be reached by a 14-mile [22.5-kilometer] hike beginning at North Trail Canyon, 3.5 rough miles [5.6 kilometers] past Hans Flat Ranger Station. Reaching the trailhead can be an adventure, but the views from the rim of this isolated wedge of canyon country make it worth the effort. And the quiet is as expansive as the vistas. The trail passes north of Elaterite Butte for a tantalizing view into the twists and blind alleys of The Maze.
With high-clearance four-wheel- drive vehicle you can drive the 34 miles from Hans Flat to the overlook. This is one of the park’s classic jeep routes. Negotiating steep switchbacks allows the driver little chance to sightsee, and the route becomes impassable in snow.
