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Published: October 13th 2008
West coast road trip part 1
We picked our car up from LAX airport and headed off on the highway. On the way out of LA, we drove up to the Hollywood hills to get a closer view of the famous Hollywood sign. We couldn't go too close though, as we'd heard that the letters were protected by many security cameras, and anyone wanting a close up view would soon find themselves on the wrong side of the LAPD. Leaving LA behind, we drove east into the desert and towards the Joshua Tree National park. We'd bought a national park pass so wanted to get good use of it, but as we arrived late in the afternoon, there was no one at the gate to charge us the entry fee anyway. We drove into the park and headed for the Hidden Valley campground which we were able to find quite easily. The setting was quite surreal with stacks of huge boulders enclosing a barren area of scrubland. It felt like we were on the film set of a cowboy movie. At night there was a full moon and we were amazed at the amount of stars we could see and
how bright it was in the moonlight. The next day we went to explore the park and drove up to the highest point where we could look down on the San Andreas fault line which is what makes California so susceptible to earthquakes. From there we drove back through the park stopping to look at some of the gnarled and twisted trees that gave the park its name. From there we were heading to the Grand Canyon and on the way we stopped for a night at Lake Havasu where London Bridge now resides, after having been bought by a rich American who apparantly thought he was buying Tower Bridge. The bridge seemed to be in good condition and not falling down as the song would suggest. All around the bridge were London themed items like an old red phone box and a minature Trafalger Square which was all quite surreal set in the middle of the hot desert. We reached Grand Canyon park the following evening and got set up in one of the campsites there. As the sun was beginning to set we walked down to the canyon edge to get our first look. It really was amazing
and much more impressive than we'd imagined. The unfortunate thing about being at such a high altitude was that the temperature would drop quite dramatically overnight. A little more than our one season sleeping bags could handle which left us awake and shivering through the coldest part of the night. We soon learned to sleep with most of our clothes on to get a good nights sleep.
There were excellent facilities in the park including a free shuttle bus that would take you to all the main points of interest. We took one of these to one end of the rim trail which we spent the day walking, admiring all the different views as the sunlight changed the colours of the canyon throughout the day. We had initially thought we might make it down to the bottom of the canyon but after finding out it was a days hike down and a gruelling days hike back up we decided against it. The notice boards warning of possible death further enforced this decision.
We left our campsite and headed east along the canyon rim to the highest point at the Watchtower lookout where we had our last views of the canyon
and the Colorado river, at it's base. On leaving the park we had a short drive to the Wapatki national monument, which had some ancient remains of villages once occupied by the Puebloan people who were the ancestors of the American Indians. The ruins were interesting but we were both more impressed with the magic blowhole, where the earth breathed out (you may have seen the magic hat video by now on one of our previous entries). We spent the night at a campsite at the base of Sunset crater, an extinct volcano which was still at a high enough altitude that we required extra pairs of socks at night. We both agreed we should move to lower altitudes on the next part of our trip.
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David
non-member comment
Isn't the Grand Canyon just gorges?!!