Tag: national parks

Posted on

A walk to Grand View Point Overlook, Canyonlands National Park

Our campsite, just outside Moab, Utah is in the middle of the Colorado Plateau. The plateau varies between three to twelve thousand feet above sea level and stretches over four states. Consisting of high, sparsely populated and arid desert land it’s home to no less than nine National Parks, including the Grand Canyon. Even if you’ve never visited you will have seen the plains, canyons, red rock towers and buttes of the Colorado Plateau in countless movies about the ‘Wild West’ from The Searchers to Forrest Gump. In fact, the opening scene from Mission Impossible II was filmed on the trail we will be walking today.

Continue reading “A walk to Grand View Point Overlook, Canyonlands National Park”

Posted on

Walking in The Arches National Park, Utah

The Arches National Park is like no place I have ever walked in before. Set high on the desert plateau of Utah, there is little vegetation and the sparse trees are stunted and gnarled by the harsh environment. It’s a raw and exposed place, baking in the day and freezing at night. It is literally the Wild West. What draws visitors to the park are the natural sandstone arches, thousands of them. Fifteen million years of erosion created them and we’re here today to walk among them. It’s as different a landscape to the UK as chalk is to cheese.

Continue reading “Walking in The Arches National Park, Utah”

Posted on

Walking with giants, the coastal redwoods of northern California

Reading the news recently that there are now more redwoods in the U.K. than in California (read here) reminded me of my own encounter with these magnificent giants of the natural world on an RV tour of the seven most western states in the contiguous USA some years ago. Commitments, coughs and colds seem to be conspiring to keep me away from Lakeland at the moment so I figure now is as good a time as any to finally write up and share some of these RV experiences that have sat gathering dust in the bottom drawer…

Continue reading “Walking with giants, the coastal redwoods of northern California”