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”

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”

A walk along the South Rim of the Grand Canyon

‘Don’t worry Mom, I know all about cannibalism, I saw it on TV’. 

Like Danny in The Shining, it’s all too easy in a world of Ultra HD, Wide Screen and 4K to think we have seen and know all about the world and its wonders because we’ve seen it on our televisions. Thankfully there are still plenty of wonders that need to be seen in the flesh to be believed and experienced in all their fullness. Places that can take our breath away and make us stand in awe in their presence, silent and humbled by our smallness and their greatness. The Grand Canyon is one of those marvellous wonders of the world.

Continue reading “A walk along the South Rim of the Grand Canyon”