Dead Horse Point Visitor Center

Dead Horse Point Visitor Center is a midcentury visitor center and art gallery near the rim, with geology displays and a gift shop. It’s a good first stop if you want some context before the overlooks: the displays introduce the park’s geology and the features you’ll see outside.

A short loop around the building opens onto the La Sal Mountains and the Colorado River canyon, roughly 2,000 feet below. The visitor-center parking area also starts hiking and mountain-bike routes. The center is separate from the namesake Dead Horse Point overlook farther south, so use it for the exhibits and nearby view, then keep going if you want the park’s signature point.

From the rim you can pick out six main rock units, from Kayenta and Wingate Sandstone down through Chinle, Moenkopi, Cutler and Honaker Trail formations. Together they record roughly 300 million years of Earth history. The layers formed from sediments left by ancient oceans, lakes, streams and windblown dunes; the center’s geology displays give you a useful primer before you look for them in the canyon walls.

The park opened as a state park in 1959. Its name comes from a local legend, not settled history: cowboys supposedly left a group of mustangs corralled on the point, where they died of thirst even though the Colorado River was visible far below.