Memories of our visit to the Parks USA in March 2016.

The plan was to visit the beautiful areas of Sedona, Monument Valley, Bryce Canyon and Zion Park.
We flew to Phoenix with British Airways via London - yes it is a LONGGG flight.
Would have been better to go through Toronto.
Hired a car from Alamo - Ford Escape SUV - beautiful machine.
 It cost less than $30 to fill!

We spent the first week in a beautiful luxurious rented house in Sedona, which we shared with Grainne's brother Declan and family.
So you look out the window every morning at this ...... not bad.

This is a great country for trecking - walking for anything from 30mins to 8 hrs or more through scenery like the above. Some steep climbs can be involved over fairly rough terrain.
In Bryce Park this involved snow and ice at times.

                  Sliding Rock park just a few miles north of Sedona - $10 entry - $20 in Summer.

People get into the river and slide down over the rocks.....freezing.

                                                                Reflections at Sliding Rock.

Typical Sedona scenery ..................

Luke relaxing .... again .....

Further up river.

The beauty and reverence  for  the wilderness - where trees fall they remain.

Everywhere you look there was a picture waiting to be captured 

                                                Yes ... the scenery was pretty good ....

Clear clear water

I loved the dead trees and there were thousands of them.

      Monument Valley
 at Navajo Tribal Park

One of the most photographed places on earth.

                                     50 million years of erosion   

SUNRISE

SUNSET

Shot from our hotel balcony aptly named  "The View" - which is the only hotel inside this park.

These Mittens rise to over 1000ft.

There is a scenic 17 mile drive over bumpy roads going right through most of this park.

This is the back of the famous "The View" Hotel on the right of picture.

These rooms face out to the Mittens and cost about $300 a night!

The rooms at the back of the hotel cost $120 a night.

                                                                     

 Bryce Canyon

At 8000 above sea level - it was cold and the decrease in oxygen 

to 70% was very noticeable with exercise.

We did a few short trecks and one 5 hr. one which took us up into snow and ice - "The Hoodoos".

AWESOME

The opening lines from Wordsworth's poem "Upon Westminster Bridge"

are very apt  ..............

Earth has not anything to show more fair:

Dull would he be of soul who could pass by

A sight so touching in its majesty

Picture by Grainne.
The trecking path goes through the rock.


Everywhere you look ...............

Horseshoe Bend Arizona on the Colorada river

The blue specs in the river Right are boats.

                                                                    Tree on the Rocks

Rock colours