National Parks Holiday
In March 2023, Teresa and I flew to Las Vegas at the start of a long anticipated trip to visit the national parks of Arizona and Utah.
We landed in Las Vegas on the Friday evening, picked up a hire car, and drove straight to the Hoover Dam Lodge, just a short distance from the Hoover Dam, which was our first port of call on the Saturday morning.
From the Hoover Dam, we had a long drive to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. We were staying in a lodge in the Grand Canyon National Park, and so were able to get to see the sunset over the Grand Canyon on the first night, and able to get up two mornings in a row to see the sunrise (well, one of us made it two days in a row). Whilst at the Grand Canyon, the snow came down - adding to the beauty, but making it impossible to go down into the Grand Canyon at all, and limited our driving options when we left due to some road closures.
From the Grand Canyon, our plan was to drive along the South Rim and then on to Page to see Horseshoe Bend and the visit the slot canyons. Unfortunately the snow had closed the road along the South Rim, and so we had to make a bit (150 mile!) detour. Still, this did give us the opportunity to drive along a bit of Route 66. Once in Page, we were able to visit Horseshoe Bend. Unfortunately, the trip that we had pre-booked to the slot canyons was cancelled due to the risk of flooding, but we managed to visit some other gorges, and were able to book onto a different slot canyon tour the final day we were in Page, before we headed on to Monument Valley.
The next stop was Monument Valley - one of the main reasons for our trip. We had planned a lot of the trip around being able to stay in the one hotel that is actually on the reserve, and which has balconies that overlook the valley - and was it worth it!
We had not pre-booked any excursions, and when we arrived to find that the drive through the valley was closed, we did wonder whether we would get to see all the formations that we had hoped to. However, a bit of time on the internet and we were set up with a sunrise tour the following morning. We lucked out, as we were the only two people on the tour, and the guy who took us round knew exactly where to be to get the best views and the best photos - and had a tripod in the boot of his car for those low light shots.
From Monument Valley, we made out way north into Utah to Moab to visit Canyonlands and Arches.
We stopped off at the Needles area of Canyonlands on the way up. We were encouraged to take the scenic drive - and after assurances that we had plenty of fuel (the gauge was showing about 110 miles and the nearest petrol (gas) station was 80 miles away in Moab, we went for a drive and started a walk. However, the snow came down again and, not being able to see very far and knowing that there was a very steep fall not too far away, we retreated and made our way to a very cold, wet and snowy Moab.
We stayed in Moab for more nights than on any other stop on our trip - not ideal as it was by far the worst accommodation on the trip, and we did not find Moab itself a brilliant place to spend time in. However, we did get up extremely early one day to get into Arches National Park well before the sunrise. It was extremely dark, and driving in the very early hours in complete darkness with very few cars around was an adventure. We had a very busy day, visiting many different arches in the park, before spending the next day at Canyonlands before moving on again to Capitol Reef.
Our next stop was Capitol Reef - somewhere that we greatly enjoyed. So much so that despite a long drive to our accommodation, we stayed longer than we intended in the park and ended up having to do the journey in the dark. What made it more difficult was that the road had only just become passable when the snow plough had got through, and so there were big banks on snow on either side of the road. The road was quite twisty and went up very high, and there was very little in the way of traffic (or mobile signal in case everything went wrong!). Fortunately, nothing went wrong and we found our way to our bed for the night - which was almost certainly the nicest place that we stayed in on the whole trip. Unfortunately, it was just for one night.
The penultimate national park on our trip was Bryce Canyon. Again, snow affected our visit with a lot of the park closed. However, we were able to look down into the Canyon - even if going into the Canyon was not going to be sensible in the snow.
That brought us to the last national park on our trip - Zion. On our way round, most people said that Zion was the best of the national parks that we were visiting, and it is hard to disagree. It was probably the busiest of the parks - even at the end of March, we had to leave the car at the hotel and get the shuttle bus in, and getting around the part meant getting the shuttle bus everywhere. However, Zion seemed to have everything - waterfalls, peaks, flatter walks - and rain.
And that brought us - just over two weeks later - back to Las Vegas. We had an extra hour in Las Vegas (we had forgotten that Nevada is in a different time zone to Utah). At the end of a trip out in the wilds, Las Vegas was to say the least a shock to the system. But then, I suspect that is the case for many people visiting - even if they have not had two weeks visiting the national parks.
