Southwest (1)

The small town of Bluff in the state of Utah is a real insider tip. Have a cup of coffee at the Navajo Twin Rocks Café – there is hardly a nicer place for a break. Passing those fun rock formations as Mexican Hat and Alhambra Rock, we head to Goosenecks State Park, where the San Juan River forms the counterpart to the German Saar Loop. Next top destination is Monument Valley; the red rocks rise up to 300 meters above the surrounding plateau and remind us of scenes from old western movies with John Wayne. Even the journey to the monument is an experience!

Our next destination – in the meantime we reached Arizona – is another Indian sanctuary, the Navajo National Monument. The Cameron Trading Post further southwest is so striking that everyone stops here. And then, finally, we stand at its edge: the Grand Canyon, by far the most popular national park in the USA (apart from the Great Smoky Mountains in the busy east). Grand Canyon – a huge natural wonder that we will admire again and again for the next two days.

We continue our journey at the two Navajo Bridges spanning the narrow Marble Canyon. Just before we arrive at Page, we take a look at Horseshoe Bend, another river loop, this time of the Colorado River. Glen Canyon Dam finally with its mighty walls dams up Lake Powell, making it the second largest reservoir in the USA.

What follows next is a list of national parks: Zion NP, deep in a valley, with its trusting squirrels; Bryce Canyon NP with thousands of colorful rock pyramids, the so-called hoodoos, and finally Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument, largest nature reserve in the heartland of the USA, inhospitable and almost inaccessible. What follows is Capitol Reef NP, a park somehow too boring for us. This is definitely not the case with Canyonlands NP with its gigantic gorges. At the end there is Arches NP; famous Delicate Arch can be found on the frontpage of many travel guides of the Southwest.

Via the important traffic hub of Grand Junction and via Glenwood Springs with the longest hot water spring in the world, we reach the famous ski area around the small town of Vail. We wind our way into Rocky Mountain NP; the Trail Ridge Road between Grand Lake in the west and Estes Park in the east runs over the Continental Divide and has its crest at 3,713 meters. We spend the last night in the university town of Boulder before we return to Denver airport after 3,545 kilometers through the Southwest of the USA.