my travels in pixels

Canyonlands National Park, Utah We moved north onto the other part of Canyonlands passing through Moab and picking up some groceries and fuel along the way. It rained most of the trip. Mesa Arch The Island in the sky is a high mesa about 2,000 feet above the junction of the two rivers. The trees here are resilient as the rainfall is low, the junipers are twisted and stunted, and they shed their limbs when water is scarce. Canyonlands National Park was created in 1964 to preserve the colourful landscape showcasing cayons, buttes and mesas. Thousands of years ago, the Puebloans lived here, though any items or tools are long gone, newspaper rock shows some petroglyphs and some of their dwellings still remain. Winter is back! There was one BLM campground Horsethief just outside the park that allowed trailers up to 35’ so that was where we headed. Being Friday, I was hoping there would be spaces available. The campground is half a mile off the bitumen and while there are...

Canyonlands National Park, Utah - The Needles There are four parts to Canyonlands divided by the Green and Colorado Rivers, so it's not possible to drive from one part to the other. The most visited areas are the Island in the Sky and The Needles. There is also the Maze and the rivers themselves. We decided to concentrate on the first two. Coming from Monument Valley we ignored Tom Tom’s suggestion and came up the 191 and apart from a few bumps which made most of our clothes come off their coat hangers, all was fine. We had left behind 40 mph winds from the night before and traded it for lower temperatures. It feels like winter again. The campgrounds in both parts of the park we wanted to go to have a campground but they won’t allow anything larger than 28’, and we are 35’. So the next closest campground in the Needles was the Needles Outpost, which for $20 a night gave us a nice spot but no hook ups, just outside the National Park. All water is carted in, so they would not ha...

Even though it was summer, the weather in Sequoia was really pleasant. The only time we felt hot was when we walked down to the General Sherman tree which has a paved pathway in the sun, and when you go down, inevitably you have to come up! Sequoia is just over 6,000ft in altitude. While most people come here for the trees and we did too, but bears were also on our agenda.  black bear and cub The first morning out we took the bus shuttle up to Crescent Meadow. After about 15 minutes Lindsay heard some rustling up on the hill above the trail we were on. There were a sow and her cub eating the seeds from the big pine cones. We stood there for quite a while taking photos, she wasn't worried about us at all. Like Yosemite, this was the only sighting we had. We went out on trails a few more times, walking in Sequoia is lovely, there are lots of trails and most of them are in the shade. We camped at Lodgepole campground which was definitely the right one to be in. I had book...

Mesa Verde National Park, CO This park showcases the dwellings of the Ancestral Puebloans who made this place their home for more than 750 years, from A.D. 550 to A.D. 1300. The first afternoon we drove the Wetherill Mesa and took the “tram” which has tyres not metal wheels! around to some outlooks that allow you to photograph some of the cliff dwellings from across the other cliff. Mesa Verde (may-sa ver-dee) means green table. The following day we took the Mesa Top Loop road and toured the Spruce Tree house and the Cliff Palace, the later is a ranger led tour that you pay for in advance. There are two other ranger led tours, but we felt that one was enough and had given us an insight into how these people had lived. Not much is known about them as they didn’t leave any written records, so much of what they know is a guess. These communities were built high above the valley floor for security against attacks, all food and water would have had to have been carried in. They had ...

The day we headed up to Yellowstone it was snowing which made it difficult to stop off at some of the places on the way. The roads in Yellowstone form the figure eight and for some reason we always seem to do things anti-clockwise, so we went up the right hand side. After visiting the information centre where we joined a ranger talk on bears which was very informative, if not a bit intimidating. As we hadn’t got around to buying any bear spray we decided that we would not do any hikes. West Thumb geyser basin First point of call was the West Thumb geyser basin, our first look at the thermals in Yellowstone and full of tour buses and tourists. These are mainly just hot mud holes. It was mid afternoon so we just drove around Yellowstone Lake to come to our campground at Bridge Bay. The next morning we visited the Sulfur Caldron, the Mud Volcano, Upper and Lower falls around Artists Point.   Artists Point Artists Point is my favourite, beautiful coloured rocks with a wate...

We had read the weather report for both Salt Lake City and Jackson (the nearest town to the Grand Tetons) and both had said that thunderstorms were on the agenda for the next few days. We found a little state park campground on the way up and it snowed while we tried to cook dinner! The little van is really only a fair weather vehicle, it is not pleasant when it's raining or snowing as the space inside is very limited and you pretty much have to go to bed. We arrived on the second day and found a camp spot in Gros Ventre campground which is just outside the Grand Teton National Park, but run by the park. It is close enough to Jackson for us to go in and get dinner. You can’t cook if it’s raining! Unfortunately Lindsay had already started cooking on the first night before we realized it would rain and he got wet. snow! Bison in our campground The next morning we woke up to snow! We spent the next couple of days in the same campground and went into Jackson du...

When I booked our campsite in January I was actually trying to find a spot in June but backtracked to May to get five days in a row. We could only get space in a campsite outside the Village. Forty-five minutes away. Next time I would book single nights if possible and jump online as soon as the window opened for the dates we want. I rang the information line to check if the Tioga Pass was open as it isn’t due to open until June, but they had a mild winter and it was opened a week before we arrived. We stayed the night before in a campsite called Lee Vining named after the town we had just come through. There were others along the route but luckily we hadn’t keep going as they were all closed. This was our first encounter with the bear boxes. You have to put all your food and toiletries – basically anything that has a smell – into metal cabinets. And yes locking them is a good idea – luckily there weren’t any bears around as Lindsay didn’t shut ours properly – potentially we could ha...

The drive into Zion from the eastern entrance is very windy, tight and narrow. There are a number of tunnels to go through and RV's need to be escorted as the road needs to be blocked off for them to fit through the tunnels. Driving through, we weren't impressed. This is Utah's most popular park. Zion is busy, really busy. We had to share a group site the first night and were ready to leave the next day because it was so horrible. The next morning we found a spot at the Southern campground which is near the river with lovely trees all around us which squirrels run up. The main hike people do here is up the narrows but you need a wet suit as you are walking up the river, so we won’t be doing that one! What a difference a nice camp site makes. This is really nice, cottonwood trees blow fluff through the air and there is a creek a few hundred metres away. They have an excellent bus service here, so I stop off first at the three Patriarchs which unfortunately are in shade and...

Another place I was really looking forward to see, and wasn't disappointed. It is breathtaking. I would love to come here when the hoodoo’s are covered in snow. We got a campsite in the Sunset campground and we had collected wood before we got in so that we could have a fire. The campground is lovely and the rest rooms are nice and clean, with trails in the middle so that you don’t have to walk through anyone’s camp site or back along the road. The campsites are surrounded by Ponderosa pines which are beautiful and as Lindsay said, you don’t have to worry about them dropping their limbs, like gum trees. They do have a bus service but we decided to drive to some of the points. Sunrise, Sunset, Inspiration and Bryce Points. Bryce Canyon I wanted to check where Thor’s Hammer was for the next morning, so walked partly down the Navajo trail to the two bridges. I had told Lindsay to go back as he had pinched a nerve in his back, but I didn’t know if he had taken that as back to ...

Antelope Canyon, UT I had been looking forward to this site ever since I found out it existed. We got into Page and had lunch on the lush green lawns of the visitor centre of the Glen Canyon Dam which sits on Lake Powell. Lake Powell, there are a lot of houseboats on the water I then needed to find a tour company to do Antelope Canyon as it is on Navajo land as you can’t go in there by yourself. There are two parts to the canyon, upper and lower. I decided to do the most popular, the upper one. I also decided to do the photographic tour which is two and a half hours (the other is 1.5 hours). I had read a couple of reviews on a few companies and couldn’t really decide, so we went to the visitor centre. Two doors down was Antelope Canyon Tours and we went in there and booked. We were lucky that Lindsay had decided not to do it as there had been a cancellation that day for tomorrow, with the next available spot more than three weeks away! That night we found a commercial campgroun...

Monument Valley, UT It was a fair drive from the Grand Canyon to Monument Valley and the campground in the park was closed for an upgrade for the whole season, so we were forced to stay at the RV park. Definitely not value for money, it really affects how you view a place. $25 for a patch of dirt and sub standard rest rooms. It was really windy so we had to keep the doors closed or we would have had red sand over everything. Lindsay was tired, so we didn’t get down to the Monument for sunset and as it was six miles away, I couldn’t walk. We set the alarm to be there at 6:30 the next morning to get some sunrise pictures. There is a drive around the park to take you passed all the buttes which we did in record time as Lindsay didn’t take any notice of the 10 mph sign! Unfortunately the main picture that everyone recognizes as Monument Valley is best shot at sunset, not sunrise. Sunrise Due to the fact we hated our campground, neither of us wanted to stay another night. Th...

Back up to the Grand Canyon and the weather was a lot better. For some reason entrance was free which meant that the camping grounds were full. We decided to try our luck anyway and they found a site which had an ‘a’ and a ‘b’ section, which means that you basically share a site and it has two entrances. I will be asking for another site next time. Our neighbours were from Frankston, Melbourne and New Zealand! Two guys travelling for a few months in an old Volvo with suspect steering before they went to find jobs in Canada.What a great thing to do. Grand Canyon We hiked one and a half miles (3 return) of the Bright Angel trail. And of course as far as you go down, you have to come up – at 7,000 feet! It really tests your lungs. There are lots of switchbacks and we had to stop every second one to catch our breath.The boys from Frankston did the 6 mile return, but they were half our age! It was well worth it. There were lots of people coming up from the canyon floor who had been ra...