This post will be different, heavy on pictures, as they tell a thousand words, and less on…well…words, well a few words anyway. The thing about most all of these parks is that you could just ooh-ahh them all…so wondrous!…so different!…so unique!…so I’ve said it now, so let the pictures, mostly, tell the tale.
Best approach to all of them as an itinerary is from the North, and the first wonder is…
Arches National Park, Utah.
Just west of the Colorado state line, stop at the Visitor Centre, get your bearings. Must see: Delicate Arch, Double Arch, Partition Arch, Wall Arch, North Window (arch), Ute petroglyphs, Landscape Arch, Balanced rock. (A-hiking we will go…). Wind and ice sculpted these, as it did so much else in this part of the world.
Canyonlands National Park, Utah,
From Arches it is a short drive to Canyonlands, a precursor to the Grand Canyon, but a lifetime of exploring awaits. The Green and the Colorado Rivers etched this maze. Author Edward Abbey, a frequent visitor described it as "the most weird, wonderful,magical place on earth – there is nothing else like it anywhere”. Sections include the Islands in the Sky, the Needles, The Maze, and the meeting of the rivers.
150 miles south-west is Capitol Reef National Park, Utah.
A defining feature is the Waterpocket Fold, a 100 mile long warp in the earth’s crust. Unlike at Grand Canyon where all the geological layers can be seen much like a layer cake… at the Waterpocket Fold, about 50 million yeas ago, an old buried fault started to shift and buckled the layers by 45 degrees, exposing the chocolate, sponge, cream, and frosting layers (just kidding).
Amother 200 miles soth-west bring you to Zion National Park, Utah.
If the Grand Canyon is mind-boggling, Zion Canyon is humbling. Zion is our favourite South West National Park, featuring hikes galore, from very easy to extremely difficult and arduous, and the views, well… some pictures below. The Park encompasses 150,000 acres of wild canyon country east of St. George in Utah. There is a shuttle from the entrance to the river walk at the end with frequent stops. The Zion Lodge is worth a look.
The Emerald Pools are a favourite easy hiking destination and quite striking as the pool is at the foot of a gossamer waterfall down a perfectly perpendicular wall, a treasure. Along the way, you’ll pass under weeping rock, where you will most likely get a bit wet, and where falling rocks missed our heads by a couple of feet. This is the lower pool. A more strenuous hike can take you to the middle pool and upper pool, if you are fit.
Angel’s Landing Trail, to a 6000 ft peak, sounds impressive, right, but the floor of Zion Canyon is at 4000 ft, so it’s ‘only’ a 2000 ft climb, compare that to climbing Ben Nevis at 4400 ft elevation gain. however, the trail is not for the faint hearted or those with agoraphobia, as some stretches are across narrow arêts with drops on both sides.Really Zion Canyon is the main star of the show, 13 Miles in length, with towering cliffs on all sides above the Virgin River – sheer, white and red sandstone cliffs (once a shallow sea) up to 2500 ft, which, gradually, as you take the 1 mile Riverside Trail at the north end of the Canyon, come closer and closer together until they are only 30 feet apart and you have arrived at the end, the Narrows and this most spectacular River Walk (much preparation required!!). From the moment you leave the bus, you are drawn into the awe of the narrowing, looming walls…ultimately you must choose to enter the shallow river and walk into and beneath those walls, or chicken out (easy to twist an ankle, BTW) and return back… never knowing… just watching the stream disappear around a bend.
Bryce Canyon, Utah
So different, so bizarre, so enchanting, especially in the mornings and evenings, when the spires glow. Only 84 miles from Zion, one or two days suffices to visit the available trails, lots off limits, as the sandstone is so fragile. The Visitors’ Center is the place to start, right in front of Bryce Natural Amphitheatre. Yes, it’s not really a canyon, pretty impressive, this one is, but then so are all the SW Parks in their own way. There are four trails of varying length down among the spires by foot or on horseback. The next day explore the south part, a 30 kilometer drive to the end of the road along the cliff edges for those great views.
The Vermillion Cliffs:
If you’re coming from the North Rim or from Zion, on the way to the South Rim you WILL pass by the Vermillion Cliffs, these rugged cliffs are well named, a true wilderness accessible only by 4X4 SUVs on sandy roads after checking in to a Ranger office and only a few at a time.
Grand Canyon:
What can I say about the Grand Canyon that hasn’t been said before, that it is one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the world, alongside the Great Barrier Reef, Mount Everest, Victoria Falls in Zimbabve, the Paricutin Volcano in Mexico (in my mind, tied with Mt. Fuji), Copa Cabana beach in Rio, and The Northern Lights… that the rocks at the bottom are 1,500,000,000 years old…that the canyon is 280 miles long and one mile deep…that the Colorado River continues to dig deeper and deeper into the rocks. The elevation at the North Rim is at 8000 ft, the South Rim at 7000 ft - a bit less O2 up here.
We did some of the Bright Angel Trail to get a different view of the various layers of the canyon, we found it amazingly narrow in places (how do the mules manage??). Bright Angel Trail is the second-most climbed trail in the USA after a trail in Yosemite Park in California, however very tricky and dangerous. If you can make it to the bottom, ten miles one way, 4600 ft elevation drop, you can stay in the Phantom Ranch, make reservations wellllllll in advance. The views will be... Remember! you have to come out again, unless you made mule reservations as well.
The North Rim receives only 10% of the visitors compared to the south. Its more remote, only the basics are available on site, the closest (tiny) town of Jacob Lake is 40 miles! away. Its higher and colder, but you get a different view and, on the way, you pass by the Vermilion Cliffs. Lots, I mean lots to do and spend your money on here and nearby.
Monument Valley – a Navajo Nation Park
The landscape overwhelms, flat-topped mesas, fragile pinnacles of sandstone, balanced rocks, all so accentuated when clouds scud across the plains throwing shadows… this is one of the most photographed places on earth.
Painted Desert, Arizona
The Visitor’s Center is where you can get your kicks, hard by Route 66. The Desert stretches for 150 miles east from the Grand Canyon and is full of Instagram-worthy pics. There is a circle road, or you could hike it, that starts and ends at the Visitor’s Center and does a loop through the Petrified Forest National Monument, a total of 10 miles, bring sturdy shoes, LOTS of water and watch for rattlers. You want sagebrush, lots of sagebrush, you got it.;
The Four Corners: the only such location in the US: Colorado/Utah/Arizona/New Mexico – yes, you CAN be in all four States at the same time.
Mesa Verde National Park:
This one is different from the rest in that it is man-made, encompassing about 21,000 hectares, 7000 sites, 600 cliff dwellings in south western Colorado. Used by Archaic peoples since 6000 BC, the cliff dwellings date from about 2500 BC, and sustained agriculture of corn, beans and squash were evident by 1000 BC. By 600 AD, clay pots were used for cooking and the atlatl had been supplanted by the bow and arrow, there was a ‘relative’ population explosion, which was reversed in 200 years by a series of droughts, leading to abandonment and mass movement south to better sources of water. Check out the soot stains of the cliff overhang - the result of centuries of cook fires.
We were there when Mel was just a little kid, but our pictures are faded and yellow, so…
Give yourself a good two weeks to do this place justice – nowhere else on the planet like it.
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