Dead Horse Point           Dead Horse Point is a Utah state park located about 30 miles south of Moab, at an elevation of 5,900 feet. The park is named
Richard Erwin                 from a legend about cowboys using it to capture wild horses. According to this legend, around the turn of the century, the
9/3/2011                        point was used as a corral for wild mustangs roaming the mesa top. The point is a peninsula of rock atop sheer sandstone
                                      cliffs, connected to the mesa by a narrow strip of land called the neck. 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.