Edd's Travels: Moab, Utah

My last act in Colorado, before leaving for Utah, was to visit Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park. This canyon is narrow but spectacularly deep (1,800ft). The visitor centre is at the top and there are no formal roads or paths to the canyon floor: all the recognised trails just skirt the rims above the canyon. If you want to dip your toes in the Gunnison river at the bottom, then you have to get there at your own risk. At the bottom of the canyon there is no staffing, no mobile phone reception, and no access for rescue helicopters...

Pah. Arriving at the visitor centre, I pushed my way through a crowd full of beer guts, triple chins, bingo wings and elasticated-waist jeans - all of them there only for the view from the top - and after a brief negotiation with a friendly National Park Service ranger, I was handed my Wilderness Permit. Man-card renewed.

The descent was tough but straightforward, a rocky downhill scramble mostly in a straight line. There's one particularly dodgy 80-foot stretch, but it has a long metal chain tied to a tree at the upper end so that you can hand yourself down a bit more safely. Anyway I got to the bottom after a couple of hours, and duly dipped my toes in the river. There was nobody else around at all. Just the sun shining, and the river burbling along, and the vast canyon walls teetering overhead.

Had this been at sea level, I dare say the way back up wouldn't have been too bad. But the canyon floor sits 5,440ft above sea level and there is a resulting deficiency of oxygen, which has always been one of the elements I cherish most fondly. I was thoroughly knackered by the time I regained the cliff tops.

During one of my little breathers mid-slope, I suddenly realised that I was sitting right next to a fairly big yellow and black snake, about the width and length of a decent-sized climbing pole. It seemed entirely unperturbed by my presence. I can't say I reciprocated the sentiment, but as I was situated halfway up a very rocky cliffside, running was not an option in any direction. Thankfully the snake wasn't a rattler.

(I have to confess that the Gunnison photos below aren't mine. For reasons I won't bore you with, none of the photos I took there survived the day. Google Images has had to step in.)

On Sunday I visited two more National Parks, Canyonlands and Arches, for which see photos below - and these photos are my own. (Spooky coincidence - during this drive my MP3 player, on shuffle setting, threw up a song called 'Another Park, Another Sunday'. It's by the Doobie Brothers). There were no big hikes in these two parks, just scenic drives and short trails, but the photos will hopefully tell the whole story.

Moab itself is small but very nice. It mainly serves as a tourist hub for the surrounding parks. Even by American standards, there's a strong individualistic and libertarian ethos around here: you can buy T-shirts that say 'Sure, you can trust the government - just ask an Indian'.

The Moab Brewery is impressive and the standouts for me were Red Rye and Derailleur. I was also amused to be served an 'English style mild amber ale' which was both cold and fizzy. Bless 'em. It was pretty good though.