Grand Canyon, Vegas and Death Valley: Early starts, wet t-shirt competitons and flamingoes

5 million people visit the Grand Canyon every year for, on average for 2 hours, and only about 1% make the journey down to the bottom where the temperature can be 20c hotter, rattlesnakes are common and water sources unreliable en route.  With a list of attractions like that, we couldn't resist.

We based ourselves at the less popular North Rim which sits on the higher, cooler, green Kaibab plateau. The canyon is awesome in the true sense of the world and a full moon rising shortly after a fiery sunset certainly didn't detract.  But I’ll admit; we were a bit nervous about the next day.  The park literature makes a summer descent in the heat sound a bit insane and even a little dangerous.  We'd chosen the longer 28 mile route and seemed to have budgeted half the normal time to do it.  The advice was to complete all hiking by 10am so it was an early night...

...followed by an early start; alarm at 4am and we were on the trail by 5.  It took 7 miles to drop to almost the bottom, then another 7 to reach the mighty Colorado river 1000m below the rim.  And actually, it was pretty easy; with only 1 hour not in the dark or shade we arrived at our campground at 11.30.  Plus, it was all downhill, though you knew what goes down must come up....

It was actually pretty comfy

We had no tent, sleeping bags or stove to save weight, (at 38 in the shade we didn't get too cold) and so rigged up a survival blanket for a quick afternoon nap.  Every activity factored in a trip to the river to soak t-shirts in the cold water to try and regulate our temps (it stayed around 50 in the sun all day).  The highlight was an extra 3mile hike at 4pm half way up the South Rim with phenomenal views and another great sunset.  If we hadn't been quite so cautious we realised we could have attempted the Rim to Rim to Rim, but always good to leave a challenge for next time...

A 3am start got us to the top by 10.45 (yes, weirdly it took us roughly the same time to get down and up), but 45min in the full sun was enough for me to feel a bit strange - must be lack of sodium which convinced me to eat a whole tube of Pringles (except for those stolen by a chipmunk after I dozed off).  Pizza, a rare shower and beer completed an awesome trip.  We left the empty green plateau, drove through the empty desert and felt rather surprised to arrive at...

Las Vegas, baby!  If you've been, you'll know how crazy it is if you haven't here's a summary:



Our low key hotel

- they've built the streets of Venice inside a hotel, gondolas on canals on the third floor (I've been to Venice, this was identical but cleaner);

- they've rebuilt Paris, including the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe, replete with Gordon Ramsay's face on it, (I've been to Paris, it was pretty similar, but the waitresses were more polite);

- you can gamble wherever you want, whenever you want, whatever you want but we didn't because my great great grandmother (the Countess Voltaira dontcha know) lost all her money gambling in Monte Carlo so I can't touch it; and

- girls, girls, girls are available everywhere ("in your room in 20 minutes") - not nice, now it becomes clear why so many conferences happen in Vegas.

Zabriskie point, Death Valley NP

Awesome to see, but having driven through hundreds of miles of desert it's pretty obvious it's about 200% not sustainable.  In 1000 years humans (if there are any left) will pick over the ruins and hold it as an example that, despite all the technology of the 21st century, we couldn't magic up water. However, it could serve incredibly realistic French food about 8000 miles from Paris so that was a bonus.

And, after 30 minutes of enforced pool time (by me) we headed to our Park 8: Death Valley.  Officially the hottest place on earth, can I admit we were a tiny bit pleased to be in a car with air con?  For some reason, I had forgotten that valleys need mountains on either side, so the 3000m peaks on either side were somewhat of a surprise. 

Don't worry, he came back

We waited until 5pm to do the obligatory walk on the salt flats at the lowest point in the US (the water in Badwater certainly didn't look inviting) but it was still roasty toasty.  And even with my desire to tick everything off from the guidebook, the walk on sand dunes in 46c was too much and I fled to the car.  Our campsite was luckily 2000m higher than the valley floor so not too hot to sleep.  But most excitingly we spotted a newly-discovered-in-the-park-newspaper-species, a tiny, non water drinking, nocturnal kangaroo rat (so inquisitive about our camp spot I nearly trod on him). 

Desert: tick.  Now back to the mountains with the Sierra and the climber’s paradise of Yosemite...

Arches, Canyonlands, Capitol Reef and Bryce Canyon: Hot rocks, cool campsites and scenic byways

So our usual northern evergreens were gradually replaced by rocks, sand and cacti as we drove 600 miles south to four of Utah's national parks.

Arches contained, you guessed it, around 2000 natural rock arches in a many coloured desert landscape.  We arrived late, but the full moon illuminated the huge rock formations encircling our sought after campground. A 5am start ensured we arrived at Landscape arch just in time for sunrise, wowsers.  We then packed up our tent (no. 6 in a series of 19 pack ups, - still always accidentally packed something inside the tent) and headed off on one of the many hikes.

Crusty crust!

A word on 'hikes' in national parks.  US citizens are not always known for their svelteness (no sniggering, Canada and UK aren't far behind).  The Parks service recognises this and understandably doesn't want too many coronaries so the 0.3mile tarmacced walk to a sight is INVARIABLY described as a "hike". Which makes it tricky to distinguish between a stroll and an actual lung busting, tendon aggravating hike.  (Rest assured, we found plenty of the latter.)

A ranger led 'hike' through the complex Fiery Furnace left me obsessed with desert crust; tiny bacteria bond together sand grains to, over around 100 years, create soil in which plants can grow.  Destroyed by a single footstep, it takes another century to reform; understandably not realised by early European settlers who couldn't fathom why their cattle quickly desolated what appeared to be dry but sustaining grasslands.

Jumping photo!

A night in the adventure mecca of Moab preceded our next campspot in Canyonlands NP.  A huge distant lightning show and an incredible overlook over the very complex terrain of this park made up for the lack of water tap and stinky toilets.  The only real way to explore is a multi day guided jeep or mountain bike trip (or if you don't mind risking a limb or two you could go solo aka Aron Ralston in 127 hours).

Our tattered western states map was becoming unreadable but we found a gem of a replacement; the National Geographic adventure atlas in a Visitor Centre (yes, we did visit lots and yes, I did have to be torn away).  We followed a scenic highway route through the lunar like landscape of Grand Escalante National Monument and had a bonus stop at our fifth NP, Capitol Reef, named for the huge fold of the earth's crust rearing up like a reef.

Bryce Canyon: It really is that good

Our final 'amazing rock formation' park was Bryce Canyon; not really a canyon (formed by a river) but a series of giant amphitheatres along a high plateau. A sunset hike among the salmon pink rock spires (named hoodoos after voodoo) was breathtaking (particularly as the park is based at over 2,700m elevation). However, it shouldn't surprise you the speed with which a mention of a new species in a park newspaper could give me a deep longing to spot one; the trip could now not be complete without seeing a rare Utah prairie dog (think more meercat than wolf)... A wrong turn on the way out rescued me from despondency as we spotted two little sentries on duty for the colony.  Job done.

Now we headed south again for a real hike: to the bottom of the biggest gash in the earth's surface, the Grand Canyon...

Yellowstone and Grand Teton: "Moose-hunting, bear-avoiding and geyser-gazing"

Sniff, sniff

Canadian colleagues were already concerned that our 19 year old many-patched Jeep wouldn't make it 5000 miles through the US deserts in summer. She might have heard them or, more likely, she was concerned for our welfare and knew she wouldn't make it in the real heat so on day 2 she bowed out gracefully.  As the extremely kind Montanan mechanic explained, we could invest hundreds of dollars fixing the radiator to see if the engine was okay but, with sterner tests to come, we bid her farewell on a parking lot in Missoula.  So with just a day lost, we headed off in our new (bizarrely Hawaiian plated) hire car, to Yellowstone.

They know they own the road

Keen readers, or just my mum, will remember we visited the snowy expanses of the USA's first national park at New Year. Trying to catch up our schedule to our achieved-with-blood-sweat-and-tears campground reservations, it wasn't such a leisurely affair this time.  A 4.30am start (don't worry, it won't be our earliest) ensured we didn't miss some magical wolf howling, traffic jams caused  by 2 ton bison and the usual array of speedy antelopes and trotting coyotes. 

Stinky stink

The park is actually the caldera of a huge exploded super volcano and so is one of the most geothermally active places on the planet.  This results in a good stink in some places, yellow stone (geddit?) and some awesome erupting geysers.  We just had time for the main show of 'old faithful' and some bubbling mud before we headed on to our park number 2...

Classic Tetons shot

The Grand Tetons range is still pushing up, while the area around it sinks (into 'Jackson Hole') meaning you get a rare view of an entire range rising from the plains.  We were lucky to have a day of good visibility as all summer humongous forest fires have raged across this part of the States.  But it wasn't all about the peaks, we had one clear objective; to see a moose.  You might think living in Canada would have sorted this already but my constant questioning always resulted in "oh moose, well, they're just everywhere".  Yep, everywhere and NOWHERE!  It was allegedly impossible not to see a moose in GT so the hunt was on....

No. 1 recommended spot (yummy willow trees); no moose.  Second choice (delicious boggy weeds); no moose. Place where nice visitor centre man saw three on his way to work; no moose.  Place fellow moose hunter saw one an hour ago; no moose.  My spirits were sinking. Our last chance was our overnight trip high up the mountainside... 

He owns the forest and he knows it

Armed with specific ranger taught brush observation techniques we set off with some trepidation.  But it turned out the moose gods knew it was my birthday. A polite cough/grunt/neigh sound to our left revealed a set of palmate antlers... success!  And then we couldn't stop seeing them: we followed a lady moose as she travelled amazingly quickly through dense undergrowth; watched a bull moose reclining in meadows and; as we ate our lunch, another bull walked straight across our path (a bit too close for comfort).  So moose panic over.

We camped at a lakeside wilderness site (which means no north American staples like a picnic table, fire ring and pit toilets (in case you're wondering, you go in a hole and pack out the tissue, nice)).  All very tranquil until at 8pm a large black bear nonchalantly approached the camp.  Unlike BC bears he was undeterred by talking, shouting and clapping and only backed off after we banged rocks on the bear cache and Mark made a special, new poltergeist like bear scaring wail (our 6 neighbours seemed slightly perturbed by this development).  But he didn't go far, just circled the camp until he disappeared into the dark trees...

Bit grainy, but you get the idea...

Needless to say, little sleep was had by all, not helped by gale like winds which would have masked his approach (though huge padded feet make them pretty silent).  But we survived the night and then bumped right into him sitting on the path as we left...  When we later made our bear report to the rangers we discovered a hiker had his pack ripped apart by a bear in the same area that day so were lucky (more for not losing our dinner, black bears are rarely too dangerous).  But then that's the challenge of spending time in prime bear habitat.

We left the next day, saying goodbye to the familiar mountains and forests of the north to the deserts and canyons of the south...

Whirlwind tour of the Western States - the intro

Its hard to know where to start with blogging about our 3 week road trip to ten of the most iconic national parks in the US.   We went from 46 degrees centigrade to below freezing in one day.  We walked on the lowest point in the US, and on snow near one of the highest.  And, obviously my fave part, saw wildlife from a 1 ton bison to 20gram hummingbird, and a bear with a very keen interest in our dinner.  Oh, and we wrote off our car (turns out temperature gauges ARE really important after all...)

Instead of one epic post, I'll divide the trip into posts on each park, check out the sub title if the park names don't mean too much...  WARNING:  I've written some of it as much for us to remember all the good, bad and ugly bits: so some of it is pretty long, feel free to skim and just look at the piccies!