West USA: Las Vegas and the classic parks

Las Vegas is beyond words. It shines like a diamond the middle of the desert, dazzling with its extravagant luxury hotels, bustling with all sorts of shows and revelry. A place – but can such a place even exist? – without equal in the whole world.

Today you leave glittering Las Vegas behind and climb up the Nevada desert until you enter the amazing Bryce Canyon scenery of red pinnacles and verdant forests. Before leaving the desert we suggest a detour to visit Valley of the Fire State Park. From I-15 exit 75 takes you at this wondrous little park of red rocks and petrified dunes. Entrance is $10. Re-enter I-15 following RT 169. You want to leave again I-15 after St George, to go through the spectacular Zion National Park. Bryce is less than 2-hour drive from Zion, so even if you don't have the time to leave your car at the Visitor Center and take one of the frequent shuttles that run along the Zion Canyon, you can still enjoy stunning scenery as you drive along RT 9. Make sure to make a stop at the lookout at Checkerboard Mesa, one of the icons of the park, before heading further east. For refreshments and refuelling, stop at Mount Carmel Junction: grab a slice of Ho-made pie at Thunderbird Restaurant, try the strawberry rhubarb. Bryce Canyon is, in fact, not a canyon: it’s a breathtaking natural amphitheatre full of spires and arches and pinnacles, jutting out in dazzling colours against the sky, moulded by the rain and frost in bizarre shapes to create a unique mountainscape.

Your destination today is Page / Lake Powell. Must-stops along the way are: Red Canyon to take some pictures; Orderville Mine Rock Shop, right off US-89 in Orderville, with a great selection of indigenous minerals, stones and gems; Mount Carmel Junction for a slice of Ho-made pie at Thunderbird Restaurant, try the strawberry rhubarb. But you will find a wider choice and small-town friendly service in Kanab. Kanab was nicknamed “Little Hollywood” thanks to all the Western movies made here in the 50’s. From Kanab you can follow the quicker US-89, or you can take the 89A that goes through the stunning Vermilion Cliffs National Monument, the alla merican village of Fredonia and the Marble Canyon bridge on the Colorado river on. If you choose route 89, you cross the Utah/Arizona border and the Colorado River by the Glen Canyon Dam Bridge. The Dam forms Lake Powell, one of the largest man-made reservoirs in the U.S, and without doubt the most scenic, stretching 186 miles across the red rock desert from Page, Arizona to Hite, Utah. Lake Powell was formed when the Glen Canyon Dam was erected on the Colorado river. The reservoir, surrounded by an immense desert, makes for a striking landscape – its turquoise water clashing with soaring cliffs made of red sandstone.

Before leaving Page you should make a stop at Horseshoe Bend, just 5 miles south of downtown Page. The outlook at Horseshoe Bend is easily reached on a gently graded 2.5-km trail from a free parking lot. The path is mostly sand over hard-packed dirt. Bring water. After you leave Page, you're just two hours from Monument Valley Tribal Park. You'll need $20 in cash to pay for park entry. Monument Valley is arguably the most famous landscape of the American West – and possibly the most breathtaking one. The red sandstone crests, jutting out from the desert, were the iconic setting of numberless blockbusters – above all “Stagecoach” (1939). The park stretches over the land of the Navajo Nation, between Utah and Arizona.

Enter Navajo Nation land and see the old Cameron Trading Post. The Grand Canyon is the most famous and most spectacular example of river erosion - an inconceivable abyss formed by the wear of the Colorado River. The Canyon is 1,500 m deep, 450 km long and 16 km wide. Its layers disclose the geological history of the last 2 billion years and its rocks change color according to the time of the day - your first glimpse of this majestic landscape will leave you speecheless. The Grand Canyon, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is a truly unforgettable sight.

The long drive from the Grand Canyon back to Las Vegas has a few interesting places to stop and explore. You drive down Route 64 through the ponderosa pines of the Kaibab National Forest to Williams. We suggest a stop here, before entering Interstate I-40 to Las Vegas. Williams' Main Street is the most well-preserved stretch of Route 66 in the entire country. Today, old, dated gas pumps, diners, jukeboxes, and 50s era memorabilia can be seen on just about every corner. You enter I-40 and drive to Kingman where you take Route 93 crossing into Nevada via a new bridge over the Colorado River, just downstream of the Hoover Dam, built in the Thirties during the Great Depression, a very impressive sight and feat of engineering. Lake Mead is the name of the reservoir at Hoover Dam. It is the largest (by volume) reservoir in the United States.