Rock, Rock ‘til ya drop!

“Meep! Meep!!” – Road Runner

Every kid of our generation remembers being hunched in front of a small CRT TV screen watching the flickering Saturday morning cartoons, waiting for the scurrilous Wile E. Coyote to finally nail that annoyingly elusive and evasive Road Runner. Ever since we contrived of our plan to live on the road for three months, we’ve had images in our heads of those cartoonishly outrageous landscapes that formed the background to the eternal coyote versus bird battles. Surely these crazy crags, ridiculous rocks and bodacious boulders must have been works of pure imagination from the minds of the Looney Tunes studio artists?

We stand corrected!

America offers the unique opportunity to quite literally walk through a billion years of history as you traverse the Grand Staircase. From the Wasatch pink cliffs of Bryce Canyon, to the Visnu schist still being scoured out of the lower Grand Canyon, the entire history of the planet is encased in one singular record. Like gigantic pages of an opened book, the staircase terraces tumble down over only a few hundred miles, each layer encasing entire timelines of humanity, civilisations, gods, magnificent beasts, prehistoric plants and the earliest amoebas that breathed life into the floating rock we all call home.

It’s humbling to realise that all of human history sits within just the first few feet atop the hoodoo formations that arc around the Bryce amphitheater. Walking through these silent sentinels one gets the feeling that it is us that are the observed, watched and judged. “Enjoy your time on earth” they whisper, “I’ve seen many come and go in my time”. Here, a millennia is second, a tiny tick on the epoch clock.

As oceans have come and gone, desert dunes formed and departed, and wetlands with lush forests and muddy rivers have woven their slow course, so each have left their signature and mark in the layers. Through pinks, browns, greys, blues and greens, punctuated by vermillion reds and impossible whites, their grand story is painted in the towering cliffs, fluted fins and comical columns than define these landscapes.

Time really is the grand mistress of this place, and she is doing incredible things with the materials at hand. Here are but a few of our favourites.

Zion National Park

It’s hard to beat Angels Landing hike for its fast and furious ascent up the Moenkopi, Chinle and Navajo layered cliffs. With 1,000 foot sheer drops on both sides and some chain link as the nod to safety, climbers are rewarded with both an exhilarating experience (that takes your breath), and then 320 degree views from the top. Many don’t make it to the top, but a calm and measured pace got our seven and eleven year old boys up, or as they would see it, they got their mum to the top!

With sheer walls towering over 2,000 feet above, and narrowing to just 40 feet apart in places, The Narrows is a unique canyoning experience. With a careful watch on weather (flash floods are a real danger here), and the abilities of your crew, you can fairly quickly lose yourselves in an adventure. Great to do on a hot day, with the constant plunge in and out of the cool water offsetting the blistering heat of the day.

Capitol Reef

Perhaps the most underrated park in the US, Capitol Reef is like the National Park Service releasing a greatest hits album. With everything from arches to spires and domes, there are many great hikes to be had in this vast park. Co-hab Canyon is a treat, as it cuts its high path between the lush, orchard filled valleys of Fruita and the more popular hike to Hickman Arch to the east. You can see why early polygamist Mormons picked this out as a refuge from those less accepting of their version of truth.

For those with a high clearance vehicle (ideally 4×4) the day long drive around Cathedral Valley is a unique experience. With a wide range of desert landscapes, monoliths, mesa’s and even a giant sinkhole, there are many small side trips to be enjoyed.

Canyonlands

Whilst we never made it off the high tops of Canyonlands into the depths of the Green River or Colorado River canyons, we did enjoy the many smaller hikes up high in the Island in the Sky zone. White Rim Overlook, Whale Rock and Mesa Arch are all easily accessible within a morning, the afternoons being off limits to us with the rising daily heat.

Outside of the park, there are some unique experiences to be had searching out the 165 million year old Therapod tracks miraculously encased in ancient sea shore mud, along with some fossil trails that take you directly to the exposed remains of Saurapods. With two young boys in the lead, this was a highlight experience.

Arches

Perhaps we were all rocked out and tired from days in the heat, but what we had anticipated as a journey highlight turned out to be a bit “meh!”. Although each is impressive in its own right, the arches of Arches National Park are directly on the itinerary of every other tourist in town and we felt the place was over run and perhaps overrated. It’s still worth the visit, but we have had many more dramatic and more private experiences in lesser rated parks.

With Mesa Verde, Monument Valley and the ubiquitous Grand Canyon yet to be explored, we are far from completing our escapades down the Grand Staircase, but one thing is for certain, we are keeping a close eye out for ACME powered coyotes in hot pursuit of the Accelerati Incredibilus!

“MEEP MEEP!!!”