Day 3
Valley of Fire State Park - We'll take a scenic drive through Nevada's ancient Valley of Fire State Park on our journey from Las Vegas to Bryce.
The park can trace its history back millions of years to the Jurassic period. It was formed by faulting and eroding sand dunes, resulting in dramatic red rock formations rising above the Mojave Desert. The landscape glows as though it's on fire in the sunlight. Bright red Aztec sandstone stretches skywards or swirls through the valley to create captivating formations that seem to erupt from the grey and tan limestone landscape. Along the way, you may spot ancient, petrified trees from the roadside and stop to see petroglyphs - prehistoric rock carvings that date back more than 2,000 years. These interesting carvings depict hunting, gathering and cultivation as well as petroglyphs of shamanic and spiritual significance.
Day 4
Bryce Canyon National Park - Today we'll take a full day to explore the other-worldly landscape of Bryce Canyon National Park. It's famous for its large collection of hoodoos - the distinctive pillars of red, white and orange that soar skywards to touch the blue sky above - which create a strange topography that could easily pass for a fictional planet in a sci-fi film.
Named after Ebenezer Bryce, an early Mormon settler who made his home in the area in 1874, the park doesn't actually protect a canyon but a series of 14 giant natural amphitheatres. Its bowl shape is formed by the drainage of seasonal rains and melting snow rather than flowing rivers, as canyons are.
There are many fantastic scenic views of Bryce Amphitheatre, like Sunrise Point and Sunset Point. However, what are possibly the most dramatic of all views can be found standing at Bryce Point from which most of the park is visible, as well as the nearby Henry and Escalante Mountain. As we explore, we'll wind our way through the canyons, passing natural bridges, like Thor’s Hammer and the Grand Staircase, and forests of spruce trees, fir, pine and juniper. During the day there may be the opportunity to take a short walk through the landscape for a more hands-on experience of the spectacular setting.
Day 5
Navajo Indian Reservations (Antelope Canyon and Monument Valley) - Today we'll cross state lines as we explore the Navajo Indian Reservation. This is the largest reserve in the United States, covering 27,000 square miles of land spread over four states – Arizona, Utah, New Mexico and Colorado - and encompassing many well-known landmarks.
Here, we'll begin with a visit to Horseshoe Bend in Arizona. The bend is a well-known landmark, and a social media darling, thanks to its photogenic natural landscape (although, in our opinion, photos can never compare to seeing it with your own eyes). It's also the site of a decisive battle in the Creek Indian War (1813-1814) in which European powers and the USA Army defeated the Creek Nation, killing more than 800 of their 1,000 warriors and effectively ending Creek resistance to American advances into the southeast, opening the Mississippi Territory for pioneer settlement. It has significant cultural meaning to the Navajo people as one of the places where tribes - the Anasazi, the Paiute, and the Diné (Navajo) - grew crops, hunted, and lived and died for centuries.
Nearby, we'll visit Antelope Canyon to experience amazing sandstone formations, beautiful colours, and the light as it hits the canyon - if you have a camera, you'll want to keep it handy here. Surrounded by epic desert scenery, with countless hues of red and orange, there are vast rock formations at every turn, including the huge wave-like walls of the water-worn ravines that run deep into the earth, known as slots.
Later, we'll continue towards the Arizona-Utah border to Monument Valley. Here, we'll enjoy a 4x4 tour of the Valley with a Navajo guide. The lower basin of Monument Valley has played a starring role in American Cinema, from John Wayne Westerns to blockbusters like the Transformer franchise. You can marvel at the incredible flat-topped towers of red sandstone and limestone buttes and mesas as they rise dramatically from the surrounding barren desert and learn more about the significance of the land to the Navajo people from our local guide.
Day 6
Mesa Verde National Park - Mesa Verde Park may be one of the lesser-visited national parks, but there's still plenty to see. As the only National Park devoted to Native American Archaeological remains, the park protects the cultural heritage of 26 Pueblos (American Indian villages) and tribes, offering an almost untouched window into the past. The history here outdates Europe's 'discovery' of the new world by hundreds of years. We'll visit the past dwellings of the Anasazi, an Ancestral Puebloan people who inhabited the area between 600 AD and 1300 AD. Thanks to the dry desert climate and cliffside location under massive folds in the rock, their intriguing mud-brick cliff dwellings are some of the best preserved in the country - truly an extraordinary sight.
Day 7
Arches National Park - Travelling north this morning, we'll visit one of the highlights of our tour, Arches National Park.
The park boasts the world’s largest concentration of natural sandstone arches within a relatively small area of 73,234-acres. Its Mars-like topography, with its changing colours of oranges and deep reds, is sure to leave an indelible mark on the memory. There are around two thousand colossal sandstone arches - with names like Delicate Arch or Eye of Whale Arch - as well as clusters of monoliths and balanced rock formations, soaring spires and city-sized sandstone pipe organs. The landscape is utterly unique and a photographer’s paradise.
Day 8
Canyonlands National Park - Today, we'll visit Utah's largest and wildest park, Canyonlands National Park. Its 527 square miles encompass some of the most rugged natural landscapes anywhere on Earth. The park is split into four distinct areas, separated by the natural barriers of the Green and Colorado rivers. They are Island in the Sky, The Needles, The Maze and Horseshoe Canyon. Its colourful landscape has eroded into countless canyons, mesas, arches, and buttes, home to eleven cactus species, twenty moss species, liverworts, grasses and wildflowers. It's like peering all the way back through time to ancient Earth - a land before humans.
But humans have inhabited the area for over 10,000 years. It was home to Native Americans, then part of the Old Spanish Trail (a European trade route) and winter grazing for ranchers from the 1880s – 1970s, and mined during the nuclear arms race of the 1950s. Even the legendary outlaw Butch Cassidy and his Wild Bunch had a hideout in Canyonlands, then nicknamed Robbers Roost, where they would meet up and hide out after one of their big heists. Their hideout's location was kept very secretive - most of the visitors were just the women who were romantically involved with the outlaws.
Later, we'll continue on to Salt Lake City for a one-night stay.
Day 9
Drive to West Yellowstone - This morning, we'll take an orientation tour of Salt Lake City, the thriving capital city of Utah surrounded by natural wonders. It was originally settled in 1847 by Mormon pioneers, who faced unbelievable hardship in the hopes of practising their religion and way of life unhindered. We'll learn more about the city's history on our tour. We'll also visit downtown Temple Square - a five-block area encompassing religious buildings and visitor centres with the six soaring spires of the 19th-century Salt Lake Temple. And see Beehive House, an official residence of Brigham Young, the second president of the Mormons who led their exodus west to the Great Salt Lake Valley, founded the city and became the first governor of the Utah Territory.
Later, our scenic journey continues north through the state of Idaho, The Gem State. This fascinating landscape of jagged peaks, emerald-green slopes of thick pine, twisting rivers, frothing rapids and pristine lakes hides an abundance of rare minerals. (Those who love trivia might like to know that the state gem is the Star Garnet - which is exceedingly rare).
Our journey ends in the southern tip of Montana at our hotel in West Yellowstone, where we stay for two nights.
Day 10
Yellowstone National Park - Today, we'll visit one of the USA's finest and the most well-known parks, Yellowstone National Park. Established in 1862, Yellowstone was the world's first national park, covering 2.2 million acres of land in Wyoming, Idaho and Montana.
Here, the landscape is alive with activity. The park not only boasts the largest concentration of wildlife in the USA, but it's also punctuated with volcanic forces - spewing geysers, mud pots, fumaroles and hot springs. Wilderness is the theme of the day as we head into the park's natural beauty.
We'll stop to see the Lower Falls, which may not be as well known as Niagra Falls but are twice the height. A huge curtain of water that tumbles between sheer forested cliff slopes and empties out into the Yellowstone Grand Canyon where steam vents and geysers are still at work on the canyon walls. Look out for bubbling mud pools, steaming rivers and hot springs on our way to see Steamboat Geyser, the world’s tallest currently active geyser and magnificent Yellowstone Lake, 136 square miles of crystal-clear water teeming with marine life.
There are opportunities to catch sight of the park’s strikingly diverse wildlife, such as herds of bison and elk, or if you’re lucky, grizzly bears (from a safe distance, of course).
Day 11
Grand Teton National Park - As we continue our journey this morning, everywhere you look is postcard-worthy. We'll travel within Yellowstone into Wyoming - The Cowboy State - and then onto Grand Teton National Park.
Located in the spectacular Jackson Hole Valley, encompassing nearly 500 square miles, Grand Teton National Park boasts an awe-inspiring array of pristine wilderness. Named for the mighty Teton Range within its borders, locals simply call it the Tetons or the Grand Tetons. The skyline here is dominated by towering peaks covered in golden aspens, red hawthorns, and evergreen pines, firs and spruces that hide the apex predators roaming within.
The crown jewels of the park are the Cathedral Mountain peaks that tower over Cascade Canyon and the Snake River that carries the crystal-clear waters of snowmelt across the valley floor towards the Pacific. We'll take a scenic drive to see the highlights of the park and mountain range, stopping along the way to take in the views and unleash your inner Ansel Adams by recreating his famous photo, 'The Tetons and the Snake River'.
Day 12
The Great Salt Lake State Park and Antelope Island State Park - On the last day of our epic journey, we'll head south again and return to Salt Lake City to see The Great Salt Lake. As the largest natural lake west of the Mississippi river and the largest salt lake in the western hemisphere, this is the best-known geological feature of the area, dating back to prehistoric times when Lake Bonneville covered a large portion of western Utah. After the area was settled by Europeans in 1847, some settlers (and later others) claimed to see what has become known as the North Shore Monster - the Great Salt Lake's version of the Loch Ness Monster – but, with a maximum depth of just 35 feet of water, we'll let you decide if that’s plausible or not!
Crossing the seven-mile causeway, we'll arrive at the 28,000-acre Antelope Island, the largest island on the Great Lake, home to a variety of wildlife. As we drive, you can soak in the views of the Great Salt Lake from a fresh perspective and spot a few of the local wildlife grazing on the roadside - bison, big horn sheep, mule deer and pronghorn antelope roam free, and millions of birds congregate on the shoreline of the Great Salt Lake so there's plenty to interest the animal lovers in our group.