From Rocky Mountains (CO) to Gran Canyon (AZ)

This post is already out of date. It's already out of date because the vast emptiness of the off road tracks in the rocky mountains of Colorado and of the canyon region in Utah and Arizona have been totally obliterated by the no less than shocking arrival at Sin City (namely Las Vegas). And what a shock that was, after 3 days of wilderness, walking trails and silence to come to a place like Las Vegas... But that will be for another post (we are still here, a lot is still to happen...).

The way to Vegas from Colorado gave us an outstanding opportunity for solitude, silence, reflection but most of the time of sheer astonishment of some of the most incredible scenery I have seen so far. Before leaving Colorado we went into the heart of the Rocky Mountains through 3 hours of 4WD track. Starting point: Silverstone. Silverton is an old mining village turned wild west tourist town. Still very pretty and charming, it was the last stop of the miners before venturing into the...well, into the mines themselves. It is now a chance for fat lazy tourists to buy some hats, eat a burger in a saloon and take some pictures. It is also the last pit stop for the true adventurers before they step into the dangers and unknowns of the Rocky Mountains (that's us...).

The three hours of off road are truly spectacular. In this area the place is filled with ghost mining towns (Anima's Forks is the best example, check the pics), thundra vegentation only found in the artic, glaciers, lost lakes, strange animals (although we only saw a small one that looks like a cross between a beaver and a squirrel). And lots of other adventurers too: the tracks were filled with all sorts of vehicles: motor bikes, SUVs, bikes with 4 wheels, 4WD golf cars (yes, they really looked like golf cars!) and some crazy buggers on bikes going up and down the steep "roads".

Off the rocky mountains we went through Utah and into Arizona visiting the Arches national park, monument valley and the Grand Canyon. These are places of imponent landscapes, empty spaces, strange colours and a lot of rain in August. Well, theoretically there is no rain but we must have been the only ones to cross these two states in August and catching cloudy weather all the way, thunderstorms and occasionally pouring rain (I really mean POURING rain...)!

The Arches NP is gorgeous, but we got there at 2pm and with the 40º we could not really be bothered to get out of the air con to do the walking trails to the arches. We managed to catch the sunset (and the first drops of rain...) in monument valley and got the last room at a cheasy motel in Mexico Hat (20 miles from the monument valley) which was really lucky. The place was infested with a plague of French and Italians!... the first place where we actually saw foreign tourists in our way.

It was great for hiking (we caught 25º instead of 40º in the Gran Canyon) but terrible for the pictures! I leave you with some pictures of the Gran Canyon taken on the South Kaibab trail (3-5 hours to the Cedar Ridge, we did it in 2 hours!) and from the 25 minute helicopter ride to the North Rim (a must do).