The Mouths on the road - heading to the American canyons
As you may have noticed, @lamouthe and myself (@lemouth being writing today) have been away for about three weeks. Everyone deserves a vacation break, even us!
After sending the kids to the grandparents (actually, the grandparents asked for them in the first place, which is how everything started), we decided to undertake a road trip, as when we were younger. The aim was to discover the canyon country and travel across the American Southwest!
Amazing sceneries, unique colors, breathtaking luminosities! Please choose your superlative. They are all valid! If you don’t know what to say, please have a look below.
[Source: Galaxy S7; location: Red Canyon]
So red and orange! So hilly, so… whatever. The picture speaks by itself.
With this series of posts, both my wife and myself will discuss our trip, sharing varied pictures and comments about what we visited. Even if we will discuss the same trip, we will share different pictures and provide a different vision. So please do not hesitate to follow both or stories (on this unique blog)!
The trip
We made a heavy usage of the huge amount of information about all the places we visited already available online to prepare our trip. We quickly converged on what to do and how to do it, making also use of my memories from my first visit of that region when I was 11 or 12. I was not a physicist at that time! ^^
[Source: special thanks to Google Map]
Thanks to our good old Google Map friend, our trip is visible on the above picture. We chose to camp in the different sites, to be as close as possible to the amazing landscapes we decided to see. We also wanted to spend enough time everywhere, staying two nights where usual tours were actually spending one night. We wanted to hike, do attractions, etc.
We landed in Las Vegas, to rent the car, do some shopping and start 10 intense days of camping and hiking in the canyons. Some material was indeed needed, therefore the shopping. Although we carried a lot from France (including a tent), we had to buy a significant amount of stuff too.
On the second day, we head up to Grand Canyon Village, on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. Of course, this included a drive on the mythic road 66. We stayed there two nights to hike and fly in a helicopter above the Grand!
We continued towards Monument Valley where we spent one night in the Navajo Nation. While camping in an amazing place (see one of the pictures below), we also enjoyed an amazing jeep tour through the site!
We then drive to Page where we stayed two nights to visit Lake Powell and the various surrounding canyons, including the famous Antelope Canyons (see below for a picture).
We then came back to the Grand Canyon, but this time to enjoy its woody and calmer North Rim where we spent one night. One extra hike on top of the Grand.
Afterwards, we drove to Bryce Canyon, getting higher in altitude with a more reasonable, sometimes freezing, temperature. We stayed there two nights to enjoy some hiking at a more reasonable temperature, and discover a very different landscape! Some hoodoos are shared below.
Finally, we went to Zion National Park, for more hikes in a landscape different from anything seen so far (one picture below), visiting Cedar Breaks on the way. Again, two nights to enjoy the Park as much as possible!
Before coming back home, what is better than three full days at Las Vegas? Fine food, amazing shows and some gambling just for the picture (none of us cares about gambling).
As this canyon area is known to be crowded during the summer, we booked all camping sites in March 2018. We also pre-booked a few guided tours, like those at the Antelope Canyons and the helicopter tour above the Grand Canyon. Those are usually so popular that that they are hard to get if not booked quickly.
A few pictures
In the following posts of this series, we will provide more information and pictures of the places we visited. But in the meantime, please enjoy these four ones for the fun. Note that we have 4000 pictures in total, and we will not be able to share them all (no way to post all of that to Steem)…
[Source: Galaxy S7; location: Monument Valley, at the campsite]
[Source: Galaxy S7; location: Antelope Canyon]
[Source: Galaxy S7; location: Bryce Canyon]
[Source: Galaxy S7; location: Zion National Park]
See you hopefully all soon for the next episodes: flying to the American Southwest, Las Vegas and visiting Hoover Dam.
My family visited the four corners area a few years ago to see some of the same sights you visited, including Monument Valley. We were surprised to find that the famous mitten buttes in your fabulous picture are not round but are relatively thin in one direction.
From what one of the guides we had explained us, this is the key difference between a butte and a mesa. The former is thinner and the latter is wider. Those buttes are just so amazing, making the scenary very far-westy :)
Las Vegas native here! While you're here in the Southwest you should also check out the Valley of Fire, Red Rock canyon, Mono county, and Death Valley. All are very close to Vegas!
Thanks for the suggestions!
We considered the Valley of Fire, but we could have only stayed there for a couple of hours and thus decided to postpone it for our next trip. The same holds for Death Valley, that we scratched from the to-do list very early because of the time we were spending in the US (in only two weeks, it is just impossible to do everything). But again, Death Valley is very high on our list of places to visit! Maybe in a potential future trip where we will include California as well.
I have never heard about Red Rock Canyon and Mono County. Thanks for these suggestions! Happy to have learned something today ^^
Impressive! Camping at Monument valley must be truely awesome (Cf Pic). I probably wouldn't have slept at all, gazing at the stars all night in such a stunning landscape!
Funnily enough, it was actually very difficult to sleep, for the reason each camp site was of 9 m2, and there were 30 fully packed camp sites in a very small area. On top of that, the night was extremely windy (we were scared to see the tent having a walk ;) ).
But the scenery is such that after all, who cares about those details? :)
The second to the last picture reminded me of the movie; "Forbidden kingdom" Where the Money King (Jet Li) fought the Jade Warlord.
I'm sure the Grand Canyon is a spectacle to behold. Maybe one of these days, I'll witness it first-hand.
I'd be waiting for more pictures in the subsequent posts sir @lemouth :D
I have not seen that movie (I am not a very movie-person, as you may guess). I really wish you to go there, to witness nature in all its glory! :)
Seeing these pictures and being a great fan of good pictures, now I want to own a Galaxy S7 even though I'm not a fan of Samsung! :D
Awesome scenery, very Hollywood-esque.
My wife is happy about her phone. I in contrast have an shitty Samsung that is dying after 3 years of use. Am not happy about it. We will post better pictures, made with a proper camera, in the next posts. But i must admit that phones are handy to get quick and easy pictures :D
I liked the picture quality from the phone. Not too bad for a picture taken with a phone.
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The nice feature consists in the panoramic pictures which I can't do with my Canon EOS :)
You guys really planned an amazing route. The rock formations of the different areas you went to are not only our treasures, but world treasures and all located within a days drive of each other. Even though I am only a few hours away right now, I've envious of your trip.
I love the Cedar Breaks area and did a blog about it a few months back. https://steemit.com/travel/@rt395/destination-unknown-p2-brian-head-peak-agates-and-the-orange-cliffs-of-cedar-breaks
Glad to see people enjoying the Southwest.
I can no more agree with your comment. I have checked your post and for the fun fact, we have similar pictures at Cedar Breaks). Less known, this canyon is really worth the detour (at least with a jacket :p).
Thanks for passing by :)
Magnifique ! J’y étais il y a quelques années. Merci de me refaire revivre ça :)
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Ce canyon est en effet vraiment un must. S'il y a bien un truc a ne pas manquer a Page, je dirais que c'est cela.
Ou as-tu voyage exactement?
Pourquoi la roche à cette forme à Antelope Canyon? C'est juste fou...
La roche a ete erodee par des innondations soudaines et tres violentes principalement. Le canyon s'est trouve modele par des milliers d'annees (voire plus) d'innondations regulieres, donnant lieu a des formes incroyables aujourd'hui! La pluie et le vent sont aussi responsable, mais de facon beacuoup moins significative.
Merci pour ta réponse, j'avais pensé juste au vent mais pas aux inondations... En tout cas le résultat est magnifique! 😊
Nous sommes bien d'accord. Cela vaut le detour (ok dans ce cas ce n'etait pas vraiment en detour puisque cela faisait partie des raisons pour s'arreter a Page :p ).
Même en anglais, ça donne envie d'y aller :D
Le langage universel de la photo, n'est-ce pas ;)
What a trip! I'd love to see the grand canyon one day.
Thanks for sharing.
What a trip! I'd love
To see the grand canyon one
Day. Thanks for sharing.
- irelandscape
I'm a bot. I detect haiku.
This is really worthy. We organized the full hing in a couple of months, and at the end of the day, the camping option make it somehow affordable (of course, this depends on what you want to do and how many your party is :p ). In the meantime, in one odf the next few posts, we will share more pictures of the Grand Canyon (including those taken with my real camera, those here beng smartphone ones).