Utah rocks

The first stop on our tour of canyon country was Arches National Park near Moab, Utah. And what do you suppose might be the main attraction of Arches NP? You guessed it – arches! Over 2000 natural sandstone arches have been documented in the compact area of the park's 116 square miles. Though all of the arches we saw seemed improbably precarious, our favourite, the appropriately named Delicate Arch, took the biscuit, standing 150 feet tall and teetering on a ledge between two canyons.

Our second favourite was flimsy-looking Landscape Arch, standing 200 feet tall and 300 feet wide. It has been heard groaning recently and large chunks have fallen from the underside in the last few years. Somehow, I don't think it will be here if we return when we're old and grey (I guess I should say “greyer” in Andy's case!).

Indeed, the arches don't last forever - the space at the top of this photo had been spanned by Wall Arch until a couple of weeks before our visit!

Just a few miles up the road from Arches lies the entrance to the less-frequently visited Canyonlands National Park. Known as “Island in the Sky”, the section of the park we drove to is a remote and parched high mesa. Standing as close as you dare to the mesa rim, you can gaze down a 1500 foot vertical drop to a shelf of hard rock called the White Rim, which surrounds the mesa (on which you can actually drive the 100 mile circumference of the mesa, if you have a 4x4). The White Rim is then penetrated by canyons of even greater depth, carved by the mighty Colorado and Green Rivers. The rivers are so far beneath, you will struggle to see them from the mesa top even with binoculars. The hellish and impenetrable maze that lies below is of a magnitude difficult to comprehend, especially for a couple of hicks from the Fens!

While we were in Canyonlands, we undertook what I can, without reservation, say was the hardest hike of my life. Although the trail was only 8 miles in length, to say that no two adjacent footsteps were on an even level would be an understatement! The circular route, which descended all the way to the White Rim, and then climbed back up to the mesa-top, required us to scramble up and down precipitous piles of boulders for a good proportion of the hike. And by gum, was it hot! The photo captures my “we are not amused” repose, about half way around the trail, having only just made it in one piece down the rock pile in the background! As with all hard hikes though, we crossed the finishing line with a warm feeling of triumph. However, this time, when we finally finished the trail, we still had 7 miles to cycle uphill to get back to the campsite. And to top it all off, when we got back to the campsite, we agreed to share our pitch with a Mormon couple (because they had driven 50 miles from Moab, only to find the campsite full), and they turned out to be the most dim-witted and irritating people in the world ever!

From Canyonlands, we headed south and east, to dip into Colorado again. A stunning 200-mile scenic drive took us from Cortez, through the much beautified former gold-mining towns of Durango and Silverton, over to the world-class ski resort of Telluride, before looping back to Cortez. We got to see the famous narrow gauge Durango to Silverton steam railway at both ends, but unfortunately our plans did not permit us to actually take the ride.

The highlight of the loop was a hike near Silverton, which took us up to Ice Lake, which lies at around 12,400 feet above sea level. Although strenuous, it was so cool, clear and simply beautiful up there, I don't think I have ever enjoyed a walk more.

From Cortez, at the end of our loop, we entered Mesa Verde National Park, where the Ancestral Pueblo Indians built many of their now iconic cliff dwellings in the 13th century AD. Having lived in the area for many centuries, the Ancestral Puebloans mysteriously left and moved south just 80 years after completion of the cliff dwellings. Building pueblos in rock crevices provided the Indians with a degree of shelter from the summer heat and winter snows, as well as protection from rival tribes. The crevices are formed by seep springs, so there was also a supply of that most scarce of resources – water.

Due to their archaeological importance, entry to the major cliff dwellings was by ranger-led tour only. Gaining access to Balcony House, one of the the largest pueblos was no trivial matter – it was built for defence. It involved climbing a 30 foot ladder, crawling through tunnels and scaling a cliff wall with hand and foot-holes dug out.

After Mesa Verde, we headed back into Utah, to drive across some of the most awesome scenery in the world, around Monument Valley and Glen Canyon (but unfortunately our photographic skills are not equally awesome!). Although it fails to do justice to the splendour of the place, this photo shows the immense Lake Powell, which was controversially created in the 1950s by the Glen Canyon Dam of the Colorado River.

One of our favourite spots within the geological masterpiece that is southern Utah was this wavy-walled slot canyon in the remote and inaccessible Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. It's just as well it didn't rain – tourists are washed away in flash floods in such slots with alarmingly frequency!

Many more slot canyons were to be found and explored at our next port-of-call, the popular and relatively tiny Bryce Canyon National Park. Reminiscent of the Badlands, which we visited way back in South Dakota, Bryce is basically the product of erosion on drugs. Just mental – 'nuff said!

Next on the whistlestop tour of the craziest rocks on Earth will be Zion and Grand Canyon National Parks.