The parks of south west USA are splendid things. They conserve spectacular natural treasures and this place was certainly at the front of the queue when it came to dishing-out spectacular natural treasures. This part of the world has more than its fair share of spectacularity (okay… I made that word up, but I think it works). Park-life in south-west US is excessively spectacular; around almost every corner is some kind of awesome park, each with a ridiculous number of wow-factor views. So after the alien-geekery of New Mexico, we thought we’d better get exploring the south west’s park-life.
Park-Life
The excess of spectacular scenery in south west USA brings certain challenges for us as overlanders. First, route planning. There are so many ‘must see’ spots that it’s hard to pick a route to see them; it’s like an extra-tricky dot-to-dot puzzle. Starting in northern Arizona we did the Painted Desert, Petrified Forest and Meteor Crater. Then into Utah for the Grand Canyon, Horseshoe Bend, Antelope Canyon, Monument Valley, Valley of the Gods, Bears Ears, Dead Horse, Canyonlands, Arches, Capitol Reef, Escalante, Bryce Canyon and Zion. Then cutting the corner through Nevada and into Death Valley in California. Phew. And we barely scratched the surface. There are waaay more parks than that little sample.
A whole range of Park-Life Arizona and Utah
Another challenge we found was that unlike many other places of our travels, this area is much visited by global tourism. The world and his dog has been here on holiday and can therefore offer helpful ‘you’ll-die-if-you-don’t-see-this-park’ advice. We love receiving travel tips and advice and we usually take up the suggestions, but this time the advice was overwhelming. We just had to skip some of the amazing places. If you are one of our friends that recommended the ‘Great Baggy Longjohns Pants-on-fire Park’ we’ll get there sometime… promise… if we can find it 😉
Antelope canyon – patterns in rocks made by water erosion. Colours change as the sun moves overhead the slot-canyon and the light changes
Seasonal Fortune
The best made travel plans take climate and season into account. We were warned about Utah park-life at this time of year: it would be cold as much of it is high altitude. As it is low season, some attractions are closed. And also… it’s cold. Problem is, when you’re permanently on the road, it can be tricky to coordinate being always in the right place in the right season. We have central heating in Cuthbert, so we decided we’d give it a go anyway. Despite the cold.
Bryce Canyon and Zion National Parks – spectacularity, but a bit nippy up there
Turns out, they were right. It was indeed cold. But the huge benefit is that we got park-life almost totally undisturbed. Such a delight not having to jostle to get a photo amongst the masses; to share the trails with so few people. We saw enormous carparks and infrastructure established for peak season mobs and grimaced at the thought. Eeeiishhhh! What must it be like???? Yes, it was cold in the higher places (minus 14C at night was the lowest) but it was mostly crisp, fresh and still, with clear blue skies. The snow added extra spectacularity to the highest ground.
We’re definitely happy to have been to these popular tourist places in the low-season and would recommend at least considering taking a winter trip here. But just in case we didn’t mention it before… take your long-johns… it’s cold!
Death Valley National Park: from Dante’s View you can see both the highest and the lowest points of the contiguous USA (ie the ‘lower 48 States)
Wow-weary
Another challenge with the south west USA park-life is how little there is between each park. Not distance – there’s plenty of that – but other stuff. No matter how carefully a route is planned, it inevitably goes straight from ‘beautiful park’ to ‘scenic park’ to ‘spectacular park’. The spectacularity is relentless! A couple of years ago back in the Andes we suffered occasionally from the rare medical condition known as: ‘wow-weariness’. Brought on by repeated and incessant vistas of breath-taking scenery, symptoms include a gradual increase in apathy in respect of the spectacular sights before the eyes. Sufferers grow weary of the never-ending ‘wow-factors’ surrounding them. We are experiencing a repeat attack of ‘wow-weariness’ in the parks of south west USA. It’s an ailment we are learning to live with 😉
We by-passed Alien-land Area 51 on the way to Death Valley. And who knew that the town of Bedrock is just outside the Grand Canyon?? Fred, Barney, Wilma and Betty were sadly not home
Christmas
Traditional as it may be, we couldn’t bring ourselves to end the year and spend Christmas in the snow and cold; we set our sights on some (comparative) warmth for the festive season. Our final park was Death Valley just over the Nevada/California border. Far from the 9,000ft high altitude snow of Bryce Canyon, Death Valley has the lowest point in North America at 282ft below sea level. It’s a smidgeon warmer down there 😊. Finally, we settled for Christmas in Las Vegas. It’s only a couple of hours drive from the wilds of park-life but seems like light-years away. The meaning of Christmas is a bit lost in a place like Vegas. It’s glitzy. It’s brash. It is what it is and doesn’t pretend to be anything different. We’re here partly for a bit of (slightly) warmer weather and a break from park-life, but most of all we’re here to catch up with some old friends. We haven’t seen Inga and Keith for many years but they just happen to have coordinated their work schedule to be passing through. Whatever Las Vegas is about, Christmas is a perfect time for friends to get together. Merry Christmas everyone! 🎅🎄
