At Phoenix Airport

Quick blog whilst waiting for a slightly delayed BA flight back.

Here is our rating on different parts of the holiday:

One Star:
Plane delayed coming back
Guide breaking my camera

Two star:
Antelope canyon - beautiful but so crowded and commercialised

Three star:
Zion (very busy)
Mountain biking (very hot!)
Hell's backbone
Montezuma Castle

Four star:
Bryce (best to walk down to get the real feel)
Grand Canyon
Monument Valley
Water holes slot canyon
Meteor crater
West Fork Oak Creek Canyon
Kayaking Lake Powell
Burr trail
Vermillion Cliffs
Budget car rental (didn't complain about the state of the car - it had been well used!!)

Five star:
Zebra slot canyon
Peek-a-boo slot
Spooky slot
ATV driving
Valley of the Gods
Cathedral Wash

Cycling around Cathedral Rock

Today we hired a couple of bikes and cycled on the Baldwin and HT Trails around Cathedral and Bell Rocks through some great red rock country. It was very hot but very good fun. It was about 13 miles slick rock and single track. We walked the more "technical" bits!

This afternoon we went to Montezuma's Well, where an underground cavern had collapsed leading to a big sink-hole. It has been inhabited for hundreds of years as the water stays at a steady 74F all year round due to springs.

We had a heavy thunderstorm on the way there, which was good as the mud caked on the car got washed off before we return it.

We then watched the American Open live - it was brilliant watching Andy win live and all before dinner!

We had a good meal at a Mexican restaurant this evening. I had the combo special and Andrew the triple burger which is supposed to be impossible to finish,but he managed it! I think he's being taking lessons from Phil!

Off to Phoenix tomorrow after a slow start, then catching the flight at 1930 (on 9/11 - I didn't realise at the time!), back at Heathrow 1305 UK time Wed.

It's been a great holiday, with probably the slot canyons of Escalante (Spooky, Peek-a-Boo and Zebra) with the ATV the highlights. We're looking forward to seeing everyone.

West Fork of Oak Creek Canyon

This morning we decided to do a very well known trek along the West Fork of Oak Creek Canyon. This is a 6.5 mile walk along a beautiful canyon, described as one of the most famous day hikes in the US. Here are some shots:

 

 

 



In the afternoon we visited Montezuma's castle. It wasn't actually a Mexican hideout but was used by Indian from about 1200-1499.

 

 We then visited Jerome, an old mining town that turned into a ghost town. Then the New Age hippies turned up and it's now a thriving town. We had a tea there where they wore T shirts with "This whole town is high" on them. This was of one of the gardens,

 

Tommorow we plan to do something on the river and are staying our final night in the same Motel in Sedona.

Meteor Crater

Dad got up for sunrise this morning, to step outside the back of the motel to get some great photos of Vermillion Cliffs:

 

We then set off down to Sedona by car. The first "long drive" of the trip. We stopped off on the way at Meteor Crater which was absolutely fascinating. There was a centre near by full of information and part of the meteorite itself. They've done a really good job of not making it too commercial, and has some really interesting artefacts there:

After this we headed down to the busy town of Sedona, where there seems to be a lot going on. We are staying here tonight with the hope of finding an activity to do tomorrow!

This morning was really good fun. We went to Cathedral Wash and hiked along the canyon to the Colorado river. This was particularly enjoyable as you had to find your own way over the rocks and involved a fair bit of improvised climbing and scrambling before eventually getting to the river.

It got really hot again around lunch time (100+ F) so we decided to call into a lodge/restaurant in Marble Canyon and book a room for later.

After lunch we did the hours drive to the North rim of the Grand Canyon, which is about 1000ft higher than the south rim, making for some fantastic views. It suddenly got very windy and rainy producing a rainbow. There's an excellent lodge there where people were sunbathing (before the storm) and having a beer, overlooking the canyon, which looked quite a good way to relax!

 

 

These are the Vermillion Cliffs which looked fantastic at sunset on the way back,

Tomorrow we're off to Flagstaff, hopefully seeing Meteor Crater and then heading down to Sedona.

Horseshoe Canyon and Lake Powell

We moved out of the rooms we had been very comfortable in at the motel as it was full - 20 yards to equally comfortable rooms just across the way.

We then went to Horseshoe canyon. After a hot walk across the desert we came to the overlook, on a cliff 1000 feet high. There were no safety rails, I crawled on my belly and held the camera out over the abyss to take this shot

this was using the damaged camera which still seems to work OK wide angle.

Andrew stood up to take this shot using the old camera

I can't make out much of a difference on my small netbook but I would be interested in any views on which is better and whether the main camera is working OK.

In the afternoon we went for a paddle on Lake Powell in a double kayak,

 

I went for a very refreshing swim, it was very hot paddling in 100F+

Tomorrow we head towards Marble Canyon and possibly the North rim of the Grand Canyon.

Antelope Canyon, The Waterholes and Line Dancing

After a slow start today we drove the short journey to Antelope Canyon. This trip was divided into two parts, the lower and upper canyon. We started with the lower, which was a very different experience to the slot canyons previously experienced. After paying a fairly hefty fee we went in with what seemed to be an entirely German tour group. Some metal stairs had actually been built into the canyon in parts to help people get up and down certain bits. Despite the slightly less authentic atmosphere we managed to get some great photographs:

After this we booked a place on the 12pm tour for upper canyon, after paying another fee. We were driven as a group to the entrance of the canyon where there were another 5/6 other trucks full of photographers. Once we got in, we could see why. The views were incredible, a popular favourite being the beam of light coming through the top of the canyon. This excursion provided lots of brilliant photos:

Unfortunately our fantastic time came to a rather sombre end, when the tour guide asked to take Dad's camera to demonstrate how to take a good photo, then proceeded to drop the camera and breaking it. Dad was not happy about this. Thankfully this was towards the end of the tour once we had got most of our photos. After a lot of time fiddling with the camera it now half works, but we may have to resort to my camera.

After some lunch we headed off to the Waterholes, another slot but with far less people, none to be exact. Which was nice to wander through until we reached the car the guidebook had mentioned, which had plunged headfirst into the canyon off the bridge overhead. We then had good fun finding a difficult climb out to get back to the car.

The evening was interesting. We went to the local cafe where a woman and her son were playing country music. They invited people to line dance, to which about five acceted, Dad being one of them. This was not embarassing at all. They also took requests for songs and did Hotel California, Jolene, House of the Rising Sun to name a few.

All in all was another great day and have booked another night in Page, Ariona for tomorrow night as unsure of tomorrow's activity as of yet.

Zion National Park

So we returned to the hummingbird restaurant this morning, this was probably the best of the photos that we took:

 

We then headed off to Zion national park which was interesting, but perhaps not as spectacular as the other parks visited so far. This was mainly due to the huge amount of visitors there, and a shuttle service was needed to get around. However, we found some decent walks resulting in some great views. We first came across Chequerboard Mesa, so called because of the rare horizontal and vertical lines on the rockface:

After this we drove down a winding road to get a good view of an alcove, which we then drove near and got to trek to the top of. The first photo is the alcolve itself, followed by the view of the winding road from on top of the alcove:

We then drove down to Old Paria where we followed a dirt track to get some fantastic views of the striped rocks and scenery:

 

 

And finally, as we were in the heart of cowboy and western film sets, here is a picture of Dad trying to look like an angry cowboy:

We are staying in a nice motel in Page, Arizona for tonight and tomorrow night.

So we started today off with an exciting drive up to Willis Creek which then involved a short walk but got some good views:

 

 

 We then headed off to the spectacular Bryce Canyon in the afternoon where we got some great overlooks of what is called "the ampitheatre" and got to go on a great walk down into the canyon itself:

 

 

This is Wall Street:

 

This also included a great example of a balancing rock formation (Thor's Hammer):

To finish the day off we ate at a fairly decent restaurant but happened to have a hummingbird garden in the front, which was interesting as I had never seen them in real life before. Unfortunately didn't have the camera as they were spectacular to watch!