Location: Fossil Point, Utah
Movie: "Thelma and Louise" (1991)

Fossil Point is a plateau near Moab, Utah, along San Juan County Road 142, below Dead Horse Point, and above the Colorado River. The point is located at the center of this WikiMapia aerial view.

The upper photo shows my Subaru (sold in 2007) sitting at Fossil Point in July 2004. At far left in that photo is Dead Horse Point. I was exploring the rough dirt road that runs past the point and had stopped there to photograph the magnificent scenery all around. While I was here I was told by two other visitors that this was the location of the final scene in the movie "Thelma and Louise," which was news to me. I had a vague memory of that final scene, but details eluded me.

The lower photo is the final scene from the movie. I recorded it by photographing my TV screen while I watched the movie five months after photographing my car at Fossil Point. By driving off the precipice above the river Thelma and Louise committed suicide rather than give themselves up to the police. The prop car flying off the plateau landed about 400 feet below, on a shelf next to the Colorado River. It was later retrieved. The movie implies that this is the Grand Canyon, but Fossil Point is hundreds of miles away from that formation. 4WD enthusiasts, motorcyclists, and mountain bikers go past here every day.

The cliff behind both cars is the same---note the shape of its top and right edges. My July photo was almost a duplicate of the movie shot---a co-incidence that startled me when I first realized it.

This plateau was for decades known locally as Fossil Point, but the notoriety of the movie caused some people to start calling it "Thelma and Louise Point." This is on BLM land. About two miles west of here is the boundary of the Island in the Sky portion of Canyonlands National Park. Access to the point is via a rough dirt road whose official name is San Juan County Road 142. Most people call the road "Shafer Trail" or "Potash Road," but both are casual names.

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