26 – National Parks

Originally we had planned to drive route 66 from LA to Chicago, but we had a change of mind. We decided that route 66 would be too boring, not enough sights to see, so we decided that we’d spend some time visiting the various National Parks in Arizona and Utah.

We drove from Las Vegas passed Hoover Dam and along the desert highway, which includes part of route 66, to Williams in Arizona.

Williams is known as the gateway to the Grand Canyon, although it’s still another 52 mile drive to the park. Williams is an old railroad town and still looks like a town from the old wild west.

We stayed there for three nights while visiting the south rim of the Grand Canyon and other places nearby.

The South Rim of the Grand Canyon gives you a long view of the canyon and the Colorado river which runs along the floor. We had been to the west rim of the canyon about ten years ago and the view from that point was different. It was smaller due to the bend in the canyon, so you didn’t get the same vast scenery. We hiked along various parts of the rim but didn’t travel deep into the canyon.

While staying in Williams we took a trip to the east of Flagstaff where there is the site of a 55000 year old meteor crater.

This is the easiest accessible, best preserved meteor impact site in the world.

We took the tour around the rim of the crater and learned about its history and why NASA used it when training astronauts. We knew the area was cowboy and indian country when we saw the signs.

Just outside Williams is an animal park “Bearizona”.  It’s like a safari park for native American wildlife.

They had buffalo, wolves and bears among the animals on display. While we were there they had three, ten week old bear cubs which were being bottle feeding in the gift shop.

It was amazing to get right next to them and hear the noises they make.

From Williams we headed to Tuba City which is within the Navajo Nation. It was quite close to our next destination, Monument Valley. We ate at the restaurant next to the hotel. It was a Navajo restaurant and served typical Navajo food which was very similar to Mexican food. We got up in the morning and discovered that we had a flat tyre, and no it wasn't as arrow! The Indians are definitely fast and efficient. Our tyre was repaired and we were on the road again in about half an hour. It only cost us $12.

We headed to Monument Valley which is also situated in the Navajo Nation,  access to the park is controlled by the Indians.

 As soon as we got close to the park it seemed familiar, so many of the rock formations have been used in movies and advertisements. We took the self-drive tour through Monument Valley. It was quite steep in places and the road is just compacted sand.

By the time we had completed the tour our car which had been silver was a rust brown colour. From Monument Valley we headed north and stopped for the night in Bluff. It’s an extremely small town, less than 300 people.

We travelled north to Canyonlands National Park where we drove down the scenic roads to view all the various rock formations.

One road said that it was rough but okay for two wheel drive vehicles. At the end the continuing road was only suitable for four wheel drives. As we proceeded along the road Syd said “if this is okay for two wheel drives, I wouldn’t like to see the four wheel drive road”. When we got to the end we parked and went for a walk up the rocks. We got to what we thought was a bit of a climb when we realised that it was the road for the four wheel drive vehicles.

It had perhaps been a road but it was no more than a pile of rocks and rubble now. We met some lads from Salt Lake City who were down for the weekend to do some off roading. They offered Syd the chance to experience it so with no hesitation he jumped right in.

I scrambled up the hill to take the photos and video. Don’t know how the pickup managed to stay upright. I slipped and slid my way down.

We drove on to Moab where we were met with hundreds of off road vehicles. There was an off road event on for the weekend.

Our next stop was Arches National Park which was beautiful.

The rock formations were fascinating.

We hiked to the sites of some of the arches and climbed up to get as close a view as possible.

 Others we viewed from a distance.

From Arches we headed towards Bryce Canyon. This journey was quite long so we took our time travelling through Utah admiring the differing landscapes and stopping off at some of the small towns. We felt like we were chasing Butch Cassidy through the hills, looking for the Hole in the Wall Gang. When we arrived at a small town called Panguitch we discovered that it was around that area that Butch Cassidy and the Hole in the Wall Gang had lived.

It was a pretty little town with a nice shop which sold old wild west memorabilia. We continued on to Richfield which was a bit like a ghost town. From Richfield we travelled onto Bryce Canyon, through Red Canyon.

It is really just a scenic road where they have cut arches through the rock so that the vehicles can travel onto Bryce.

Bryce Canyon was similar to the Grand Canyon except the rock was redder and the canyon is a lot smaller. We decided to hike down into the canyon and view it from a different perspective.

The hike down was along a steep path with long drop offs along the way. The path twisted and turned until we reached the floor of the canyon. At the bottom was a dry river bed.

We walked through the canyon to its narrowest point where both sides of the canyon almost meet. We then had to turn round and go back because there had been a rock fall and the through path was closed. The hike back up was exhausting. We stayed in a town called Tropic while visiting Bryce Canyon.

It is about 17 miles from the canyon, but a beautiful drive through cliffs and farmland. One of the Bryce hikes is very close to Tropic.

It is at the edge of the canyon where the waters that seep through the rock reach the small river and travel downward forming waterfalls.

There was still some ice in the cave along this trail.

The journey from Bryce National Park to Zion National Park is about 50 miles through beautiful scenery. The Sevier River twists and turns its way along the route. As we got closer to Zion we climbed up the mountains to the parks east entrance. The rock formations are spectacular.

Huge mountains which look like checkerboards, then large cliffs which look like lots of waves coming one after each other.

We then had to travel over a mile through a tunnel which had been blasted through the mountains and down a steep twisting road to the floor of Zion National Park. The trails in this park are all accessed by shuttle bus. The bus takes you to various points in the park where you can hike to lots of sights. We took the riverwalk trail which leads towards the narrowest part of the canyon.

 Along the way we saw some deer, wild turkeys and lots of ground squirrels. We took the trail as far as it goes before you have to continue through the water.

The river was quite fast flowing with the snowmelt so we decided not to continue. We would have ended up waist deep in freezing cold water. Another of the trails took us up the cliffs to view the waterfalls and pools.

It was quite a steep climb and very narrow in places. We had intended viewing Zion from its northern entrance as we travelled out of the area but on our way out of Hurricane the sky turned black and we were soon driving through whiteout conditions.

By the time we reached the turnoff for Zion, the area was covered in snow and the roads were very slippery.

We decided to miss that view out and headed north on our way to Salt Lake City.

We saw a sign in the sky the other day which maybe suggests that we should be heading home soon!