Saturday, October 24, 2009

21 October


Las Vegas, Nevada


The fact that we are in Vegas cannot be blamed for the few days' gap in the Blog. We will probably blame Vegas for any future gap?


The gap is simply explained by the fact that the desert, mountain and canyon landscapes of New Mexico, Colorado, Utah and Nevada defy description. Our 'short' deviation from Route 66 has been full of 'Omigod!' moments at almost every turn. Mesa Verde, Arches, Bryce Canyon and Zion National Parks are relatively close together, but their landscapes are vastly different.


Mesa Verde is essentially a cultural experience. Its eroded canyon walls were occupied by Indians as far back as the 13th century, when nomadic Utes began to farm the Mesa top. The ruins of the stone villages they created beneath the Mesa remain today, some fairly well-preserved, as they were abandoned in a still not understood exodus about 1370. Once they abandoned the villages the Utes never returned. When they were discovered by ranchers in the latter part of the 19th Century, the Utes still lived on the plains near the Mesa, but they avoided the cliff villages, believing there were evil spirits on the mountain.


As the name implies, the main attractions in Arches NP are … the arches. Hundreds of spectacular arches have been carved out of the soft sandstone by wind and rain. The best known of these is Delicate Arch which appears on the number plates of all vehicles in Utah. Despite the long, 6 km plus, steep climb to the arch, this is a very popular hike. Hundreds of people trudged, wandered and struggled up the rough trail that is mostly marked only by rock cairns and includes narrow, cliff-side paths (with no guard-rails – no nanny-state here!). Some of these people are extremely adventurous. Or just plain crazy. We passed numerous young couples with small children in “kid-packs”. We had to push fairly hard to make the climb, particularly as we were unaccustomed to the thin air at 8000 ft. We could only sympathise with these young parents who were carrying an extra 6 – 15 kg dead weight!


Bryce Canyon was first discovered by the Paiutes whose legends describe the multi-coloured pillars that guard the canyon walls as Hoodoo - evil animals, that could take human form and were turned to stone by the Coyote God.


At Zion, we encountered the first bad weather we'd had for many weeks. A morning storm covered the ground near our motel in small hail that gave a wintery feel to what became, in fact, quite a warm day. Rain persisted on and off, so we had to limit our hike to one small expedition up a steep cliff side to the Emerald Pools. As it turned out, the pools themselves weren't that spectacular, but the views from the cliff side were well worth the climb.


On reflection, the gap in the Blog may well have been down to the fact that we were just a little weary!


BUT this is Vegas and we are at full throttle again!

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