The road to Arizona

The main attraction on today's programme was Zion National Park, our final attempt to get a feel for southern Utah before we head into Arizona.

The Three Patriarchs at Zion National PArk

A recurring theme on this road trip, and an unavoidable frustration if you're trying to cover this much distance, is that we never really get to spend as much time in one location as we would have liked to. Nowhere would this be more true than at Zion National Park where we basically had half a day to do what other people do in a long weekend. The main reason one would go to Zion National Park is to hike the numerous trails that criss-cross the canyon and we only got to hike one of these.

But let it be noted for the record that Zion is truly a sight to behold. Where, at places like Bryce or Grand Canyon, you stand on the rim of the canyon looking down, at Zion you stand at the bottom of the canyon looking up. Seeing as we still had a fair amount of distance to cover we had to cut our oohing and aahing short and head further south.

Shortly after crossing over the Arizona state line, once again adjusting our watches, we found the landscape changing to a more western movie kind of landscape. Just outside of the northern city of Page, AZ, we found the trailhead for a short walk that takes you to Horseshoe Bend. I've always seen postcards of this dramatic feature in the Colorado river but never had the opportunity to see it for myself. So naturally we made a stop, did the hike and enjoyed the magnificent sight of the beginnings of the Grand Canyon, our target location for tomorrow.

Horseshoe Bend in the Colorado River