The Neck is a strip of land only 40 feet wide that provides the only vehicle access to the isolated, 43-square mile mesa known as the Island in the Sky. The Island is bounded on all sides by yawning canyons and cliffs that drop hundreds of feet. Indians may have set brush traps or fences across the Neck to capture bighorn sheep or other game driven there from the Island or the mainland. Later, cowboys put a gate across the Neck to contain grazing cattle on the Island, where fences were not needed, and a second gate made a handy corral for holding livestock or horses. Water and wind are breaking the sandstone down grain by grain, and in time the Neck will erode away, cutting off access to the Island in the Sky. A paved road leads 11 miles to Grand View Point, the southern tip of the Island, but the rivers have cut so deeply into the canyons that their confluence cannot be seen from Grand View Point.