11/08/13 to 18/08/13 - We left Zion and took off on a fairly long road trip passing the ‘Grand Staircase’ until we reached Lake Powell. We crossed the Glen Canyon Dam and into Page, where we found a luxury campsite with pool, jacuzzi and WiFi. We pitched next to a friendly biker dude, Who gave us some of his leftover ice.
The Colorado River was dammed in the 50s to create the massive Lake Powell, a boaters paradise in the middle of the desert. We chilled on one of the many beaches for an afternoon, our jaws dropped at the size of some of the americans’ houseboats and we enjoyed a T-bone for dinner.
The following day we took a tour of Antelope Canyon, a slot canyon on Navajo Indian land. Our tour guide couldn't have been less interested in showing us around, but the canyon was really nice, and most photogenic.
Later in the afternoon we rented a kayak out in the lake, and paddled around for a few hours beaching the boat every now and then for a swim. It felt pretty unique with all the sandstone shores, some of which had layers that looked like chocolate cheesecake (maybe all the food has gone to our heads).
From Page it was a couple of hours drive to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. We passed through miles of pine forest and passed bison which were grazing in the green meadows (its not all orange like you see on the photos). We took a short walk to a viewpoint over the canyon, before having to go back through the forest to find a place to camp. We found a space in the national forest, which was packed with squirrels and chipmunks. To our surprise it was cold at night, as the elevation near the rim of the canyon is around 2500m, higher than most ski resorts in the Alps.
The following day was spent walking through the forest and stopping at more viewpoints over the canyon, which is an unimaginable site. Its 10 miles across and over a mile deep. You can rarely see the Colorado River raging through the bottom of it, but now and again you can get a glimpse if you really squint.
After another cold night we did another short trail and then made our way down to Flagstaff, a student town with a busy railroad running through it, and a major stopping point on the historic Route 66. This was our gateway to the ‘Mother Road’.
Flagstaff was still pretty high up, and we were warned to drink plenty of water (although for us now 2000m is nothing compared to what we’ve experienced in the Andes). The town was pretty small and had a few nice places to wander (a lot of soap shops for some reason). We had breakfast at a traditional Diner, with biscuits and gravy accompanying our over-easy eggs. Perhaps most interesting was the excellent Museum of Northern Arizona, which included a geologic and biologic history of the Colorado Plateau, including a lot of exhibits explaining Hopi, Navajo and Zuni native-american cultures, many of whom live around this part of Arizona. Perhaps most insightful was the way the museum guide continually stressed that “the scientific explanation is only one of the theories, there are other theories for how this stuff all got here”.
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