Montag, 25. August 2014
Flagstaff -> Grand Canyon National Park -> Hoover Dam -> Las Vegas -> Pahrump, Day 20, Thursday
After a good nights sleep in a comfy bed we got up for breakfast and finally met our host Dave. He was a nice guy who mainly seemed to make a living from renting out rooms in his house via airbnb. Not such a bad life though I guess having strangers in my house all the time wouldn't be my kind of thing. He told us that he owned a hawk and even allowed Marco to hold it. Quite an exciting way to start the day!
We then had to leave because we had quite a lot on our agenda that day. First a quick stop at the Meteor Crater that was created about 50.000 years ago by a huge meteorite, than the Grand Canyon National Park, the Hoover Dam before we'd finally arrive in Pahrump where we had a reservation for the night. The Meteor Crater was another great experience, though not a cheap one, we had to pay 18$ each. Approximately 50.000 years ago a huge meteorite with an explosive force greater than twenty million tons of TNT struck the rocky plain. The result of that was the excavation of a giant bowl shaped cavity. In less than a few seconds, a crater was carved into the once flat rocky plain. During it's formation over 175 million tons of limestone and sandstone were abruptly thrown out to form a conitinous blanket of debris surrounding the crater for a distance of several kilometers. Large blocks of limestone, the size of small houses, were heaved onto the rim (okay, I admit it, I stole parts of the last sentences form the craters' website http://meteorcrater.com/ but couldn't have memorized it all otherwise). It's the best preserved meteor crater on earth and I'm glad that Marco insisted we should visit it even though we were a bit short of time that day.
We headed to the Grand Canyon National Park then. Originally we had planned a hike down to the Colorado River but unfortunately we didn't have enough time left for that. It's definitely something I'll do next time I visit the Grand Canyon! Though I'm pretty sure it'll be extremely exhausting. There were signs at the beginning of the trail that recommended an intake of 1000 calories per hour during the hike if I remeber it correctly! Instead of hiking we drove to several view points along the South Rim which offered great views indeed and made up a bit for the missed hike. We were lucky that day because the weather was fine, not too hot and also there wasn't any rain. A friend from twitter had warned me before that the call the Grand Canyon "the big hole" because during the so called Monson-season (which I didn't even know it existed in Arizona!) it kind of fills up with rain.
We had to leave the National Park way too early but we wanted to see the Hoover Dam before it got dark and we still had to cover a distance of several hundred kilometers to get there. The drive brought us back to Nevada and through spectacular mountains that looked amazing in the late afternoon sun. The Hoover Dam itself was gigantic and even driving towards it was an experience. We had to pass a security checkpoint before we were allowed to actually cross the dam but of course the have to be extemely careful there, any damage to the dam would have an enormous impact on the area. Getting out of the car we were almost blown away by the hot wind. I had never experienced something like that before, it was very windy but the wind didn't have any cooling effect. It rather felt like someone had directed an extremey hot hair dryer directly at me! We didn't have wifi there and therefore couldn't check the temperature but it must've been at least 40 degrees Celsius! The Hoover Dam is an impressive piece of architecture and also very beautiful with a huge lake surrounded by steep mountains. We were a bit scared by the massive overflow hole. If someone ever fell down there while the water was running, they'd drown pretty quickly.
The rest of our days' journey led us past Las Vegas and we both decided that despite the late hour it would be great to drive down the Strip again and so we did! It was distinctively more fun to experience it from a climatized car than walking down the pavement in the heat and we both weren't sorry that we didn't get out of the car. We enjoyed the many lights though and were even treated to an eruption of the vulcano at the Treasure Island Hotel and we saw the fountain again at the Bellagio.All in all a pretty succesful detour!
We were rather tired when we finally arrived in Pahrump and had to remove lots of small insects from our room before we were able to sleep there. It was not that it was dirty there, the room was actually very nice, but even when we only opened the door briefly just to get our luggage in, lots of bugs, moths, etc. took the chance to get in. I really don't like insects and while Marco wasn't bothered that much I tried to hunt them all down and mostly succeeded and then finally went to sleep.
Fotos will follow.
We then had to leave because we had quite a lot on our agenda that day. First a quick stop at the Meteor Crater that was created about 50.000 years ago by a huge meteorite, than the Grand Canyon National Park, the Hoover Dam before we'd finally arrive in Pahrump where we had a reservation for the night. The Meteor Crater was another great experience, though not a cheap one, we had to pay 18$ each. Approximately 50.000 years ago a huge meteorite with an explosive force greater than twenty million tons of TNT struck the rocky plain. The result of that was the excavation of a giant bowl shaped cavity. In less than a few seconds, a crater was carved into the once flat rocky plain. During it's formation over 175 million tons of limestone and sandstone were abruptly thrown out to form a conitinous blanket of debris surrounding the crater for a distance of several kilometers. Large blocks of limestone, the size of small houses, were heaved onto the rim (okay, I admit it, I stole parts of the last sentences form the craters' website http://meteorcrater.com/ but couldn't have memorized it all otherwise). It's the best preserved meteor crater on earth and I'm glad that Marco insisted we should visit it even though we were a bit short of time that day.
We headed to the Grand Canyon National Park then. Originally we had planned a hike down to the Colorado River but unfortunately we didn't have enough time left for that. It's definitely something I'll do next time I visit the Grand Canyon! Though I'm pretty sure it'll be extremely exhausting. There were signs at the beginning of the trail that recommended an intake of 1000 calories per hour during the hike if I remeber it correctly! Instead of hiking we drove to several view points along the South Rim which offered great views indeed and made up a bit for the missed hike. We were lucky that day because the weather was fine, not too hot and also there wasn't any rain. A friend from twitter had warned me before that the call the Grand Canyon "the big hole" because during the so called Monson-season (which I didn't even know it existed in Arizona!) it kind of fills up with rain.
We had to leave the National Park way too early but we wanted to see the Hoover Dam before it got dark and we still had to cover a distance of several hundred kilometers to get there. The drive brought us back to Nevada and through spectacular mountains that looked amazing in the late afternoon sun. The Hoover Dam itself was gigantic and even driving towards it was an experience. We had to pass a security checkpoint before we were allowed to actually cross the dam but of course the have to be extemely careful there, any damage to the dam would have an enormous impact on the area. Getting out of the car we were almost blown away by the hot wind. I had never experienced something like that before, it was very windy but the wind didn't have any cooling effect. It rather felt like someone had directed an extremey hot hair dryer directly at me! We didn't have wifi there and therefore couldn't check the temperature but it must've been at least 40 degrees Celsius! The Hoover Dam is an impressive piece of architecture and also very beautiful with a huge lake surrounded by steep mountains. We were a bit scared by the massive overflow hole. If someone ever fell down there while the water was running, they'd drown pretty quickly.
The rest of our days' journey led us past Las Vegas and we both decided that despite the late hour it would be great to drive down the Strip again and so we did! It was distinctively more fun to experience it from a climatized car than walking down the pavement in the heat and we both weren't sorry that we didn't get out of the car. We enjoyed the many lights though and were even treated to an eruption of the vulcano at the Treasure Island Hotel and we saw the fountain again at the Bellagio.All in all a pretty succesful detour!
We were rather tired when we finally arrived in Pahrump and had to remove lots of small insects from our room before we were able to sleep there. It was not that it was dirty there, the room was actually very nice, but even when we only opened the door briefly just to get our luggage in, lots of bugs, moths, etc. took the chance to get in. I really don't like insects and while Marco wasn't bothered that much I tried to hunt them all down and mostly succeeded and then finally went to sleep.
Fotos will follow.
Torrey -> Capitol Reef National Park -> Hanksville -> Arches National Park -> Moab, Day 18, Tuesday
We slept a little longer today due to our late arrival last night and finally met our host Bob properly. He showed us around the house and explained to us the fossils he had collected in the mountains. He was a bit weird but very nice and friendly at the same time.
We continued our trip, unfortunately without properly seeing the Capitol Reef National Park. As our preferred destination was Arches National Park, we had to cut our visit to the other park short. We passed a smaller city called Hanksville where due to Bob there is a facility (NASA?) where scientists do experiments for a Mars landing. We didn't see any traces of it though.
We then got to the Arches National Park which is a great location, my favorite National Park so far. We drove to several view points where we took shorter hikes. The first trail led us through a smaller canyon where we had an amazing view of the red rocks. It was unbelievably hot again though so after that I felt a bit like collapsing from the heat again and needed a break in the car and a lot of water. Luckily that helped quickly and I was able to further explore the park.
Another trail led us around the Balancing Rock, where there indeed was a big round shaped rock balancing on top of another. Due to wind and rain over thousands of years the softer materials of the rocks gets washed out and leaves the harder parts in quite interesting structures. That's also why there are so many arches in the park, they have been ctreated over the years and also unfortunately sometimes collapse as the process never stops. In the 1991 a part of the famous Landscape Arch had collapsed (a park visitor was lucky enough to capture the moment with his camera) and since then the trail underneath it is closed to the public. Thankfully the people resting underneath the arch had heard a loud cracking noise and managed to flee before the rocks came down.
Another trail led us around the Balancing Rock, where there indeed was a big round shaped rock balancing on top of another. Due to wind and rain over thousands of years the softer materials of the rocks gets washed out and leaves the harder parts in quite interesting structures. That's also why there are so many arches in the park, they have been ctreated over the years and also unfortunately sometimes collapse as the process never stops. In the 1991 a part of the famous Landscape Arch had collapsed (a park visitor was lucky enough to capture the moment with his camera) and since then the trail underneath it is closed to the public. Thankfully the people resting underneath the arch had heard a loud cracking noise and managed to flee before the rocks came down.
We also visited the Window Arch that's not in danger of collapsing and were allowed to walk under it. It was huge, quite impressive! Our last stop in the park was the Landscape Arch. We took the trail up to it even though another thunderstorm was coming. We made it to the Arch and took pictures but then I turned around and almost jogged back to the car as it had started to rain. That was a good decision as the rain had gotten harder and you never know how a thunderstorm develops in the mountains. The park rangers were already waiting at the parking lot telling people to leave.
In the end it wasn't too bad and we even saw a beautiful rainbow before we left the park. We then drove to Moab where we had dinner at an Italian restaurant and then reached our place for the night.
View from the bed
The house in the middle of nowhere where we stayed
More fotos to come!
Update - Catching up
I'm sorry that I had to abandon my blog during my trip. I was already two days behing in the end and then the app which I used to compile my posts crashed (and wasn't comfortable to use anyway) so I got frustrated and gave up. But as I'd like to keep this as a diary so that I can always come back and read about the awesome time I had, I'm planning to subsequently finish this travel diary. Also my next trip is coming up in September (London's calling!), so the previous trip needs to be completed by then.
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