Canyons of the West

After arriving back from Yosemite, seeing Kath and Andrew, I flew out on the 5th July to Las Vegas to pick up the Green Tortoise Canyons of the West tour.
I had 2 nights in Vegas, so I booked to see a show called Legends of Vegas. This comprised of a number of lookalike and soundalike acts of famous bygone and current acts. It was a lot of fun, and there is only so much time one can wonder around the crazy casinos which are freezing inside, and wander around the strip which is sweltering. Shows, if one can afford them is the most fun option.
The hostel the tour picks up from was only $17 a night, and although the room was a mix of prison style beds and hospital sparseness, it turned out I had the room and bathroom all to myself, and therefore a very relaxing place, with a hostel named 'Sin City', that was surprising.
I was ready the next morning for the 7.15am pick up and met some of my fellow tourers, including a couple from Sacramento called Drew and Mary and Cathy from very near Brighton who was concerned about the quantity of tea they would have on board. The Green Tortoise combines buses and tours together to make a number of tours from few as possible buses and drivers, one of the GT's extreme efficiencies, more of which we would learn as the tour went on.

From Vegas the bus took us to Zion NP where we would swap buses and meet the rest of the group that would make up our Canyons tour, the other group had already been on the bus for a week on tour up north involving Yellowstone, and then our first bus then went somewhere else with people swapping over from the second bus. Anyway, Zion National Park is a canyon with a popular hike to the rim of the canyon called Angles Landing, it was hot and I couldn't be bothered to perspire more than I needed to, so I took a walk into the canyon up the river to The Narrows, which is where the canyon walls become close together and get, well, narrow. The river also becomes quite deep in places and we had a 6pm curfew time to get back to the bus for dinner at the campground, I had gone walking with Cathy and what we mostly wanted was a swim, we found a perfect spot next to the campground and let the river float us down a bit before returning to our new bus and experience the madness that was dinning with the Green Tortoise.We were also meeting the old group, and we were to be known from then on as the New Group, but never told anything how the whole bus set up goes. Dinner and sleeping arrangements and bus life in general is quite a palava, it was going to be a long week.
Travelers on the tour were made up of Germans, Australians by the majority, some local Californians, Chinese, a few Brits, a lady from Portugal and a guy from Argentina.

The next day the bus took us to Bryce canyon where it immediately started to rain, and heavily just after my small group of new group people consisting of Mary, Drew, Ana, Cathy and me had started our walk, we hid under a tree but we were all soaked anyway. The rain eased and so we carried on with our walk, the path  zig zagged down an area called Wall Street, where the canyon walls became close and then continued on through The Queens Garden and back to where we started. Afterwards we were taken to some hot springs called Mystic Springs, which on first arrival looked like a dump, after a look around it was still a dump but with some nice hot springs above it, where you can soak in old bathtubs whilst the Mystic Springs run over you. This night we were also introduced to the Bus Toss and the Miracle. These are things the Green Tortoise is particular font off, that and finding amazing dumps. The bus toss is where everything comes of the bus and is packed away to prepare for the overnight sleep on the bus, the Miracle is then the transformation of the bus into sleeping mode, whereby different parts of the bus have knicknames which meant nothing to the New Group and we were never told anything, our head driver Jimmy, would call out things like; 'who wants to sleep in the cave, need two more people for the cave, the honeymoon suites...' I later renamed the Honeymoon Suite to The Operating Table, more anon.
After a sleepless, squashed and totally crappy night on the bus, we woke up* at Arches NP where it was 110 degrees Fahrenheit** and the landscape had arches in it. After bus tossing, another miracle and the palava of breakfast we were off to explore Arches. Arches was hot and had arches, apart from that I wasn't feeling so great and mainly hallucinated about showers and cold beer.

From Arches we we delivered to the town of Moab, where myself, Cathy and Ana dashed all the way to the other end of town to the local swimming pool in the few hours of free time we had before having to be back on the bus. Nearby there was a Hollywood film crew setting up trailers and busing large prop items around including a train and set paraphernalia, apparently it was ohnny Depp film and everyone on the bus got excited, I was more concerned about the prospects of finding my wine in the communal cooler box. Camp that night was by the river, which was fast flowing but nice for a dip whilst hanging onto a root by the edge, and far more relaxed as it wasn't a night drive and everyone had the comfort of tents and a bit of personal space.

Day 4 of the tour involved some more faffing around in Moab and then onto a swimming hole, which was actually a reservoir, and a little bit dump like but actually very nice for swimming, we which needed as we were then heading on to Monument Valley made famous by all those John Wayne Westerns, where there would be no water at all at the camp site. That evenings camp was on first glace a desolate wasteland, but looking right over the Colorado river as it winds its way to the Grand Canyon. It was baking hot and dinner prep tressel tables had been set up behind the bus to catch the shade as the sun slowly went down, there was no other shade, gradually the bus shadow grew longer and longer until the sun finally went down and one could step outside of the shadow boundary without spontaneously combusting. Distant storms persisted for several hours which made up the evenings entertainment. It was an amazingly remote place to be, let alone camp.

The next day we went into Monument valley itself and we had the choice between a horse ride or a jeep ride, most people opted for the jeep mainly because of the heat. It turned out to be much cooler than expected and the Jeep ride was like a land rollar coaster and a lot of fun, you can drive around the monuments or mesas as they are called, but the roads are sand and bumpy so anything without good ground clearance and 4 wheel drive would not be recommended. This was highlighted as we were just finishing the tour and a car barely out of the parking lot had a front wheel in a big sandy ditch and a rear wheel in the air. Oh dear. From MV the bus took up to Lake Powell, Cathy had been looking forward to this as a friend of hers had been there and said how nice it was, after all the dry red hot rocks, some nice quaint lake front town with margaritas and icecreams sounded great.
We passed a power station and a thousand pylons and transformer stations and before arriving at the Green Tortoises swimming hole of choice, a furnace next to a damn and rather reminiscent of a dump.The water was lovely but to get to it, we had to cross smooth rocks that joined the car park to the reservoir, so no beach as such and certainly no margaritas.Crossing those rocks was the hottest temperatures I have ever experienced. That evening we had a whole 5 hours to ourselves before the next dreaded night drive which would lead us to the final canyon of the trip, the Grand Canyon, where we would spent 2 glorious days in one place.We first went to the supermarket and I downed a pint of cold water, then we went to a bar and then to a pizza resturant, and then to a dive bar where Jimmy had said to meet at a certain time, although he didn't show up, didn't matter, we played pool badly and enjoyed air conditioning before once more returning to the bus for the miracle and the nightdrive. I really wanted a bunk but just incase myself and Cathy took a honey moon suite which is on top of the dinette and has very little head space above it, underneath this was The Cave sleeping area. This was the only place from the outside an observer could see people sleeping on the bus, as it was half way up the window, and felt rather like being on an operating table, or a morgue table, all we needed was some little tags around our toes.

We made it! to the Grand Canyon and I even got some sleep on the Operating Table, by 8am we had mircaled, breakfasted and packed up the bus again ready to explore the canyon. A bunch of intrepid's were heading down into the canyon to the base on the Bright Angle Trail to camp and come up the next day, but I choose to do the rim trails instead. Throughout the few days distant thunderstorms threatened us, and could be seen sweeping through the canyon, this keep temperatures down and hiking more pleasurable, on the second day in the canyon, we hiked down to a point called Cedar Ridge to get a different perspective. The campsite was the most comprehensive of the trip and a proper campground, with shower, albeit pay showers, but showers none the less, flush toilets and shade. The Grand Canyon has a free shuttle service much like a lot of American National Parks, which makes it very easy to get from one part of the park to another and keeps cars of the road.

Sadly, our crazy tour was almost at an end, through all the complaining and bizarre camp locations, the heat, the dumps, the bus tossing and miracles; it had become life and normal. We would shortly be heading to Las Vegas where the tour officially ended and my new friends from groups old and new would go their separate ways, either back to normal life or to continue with theirs travels and find new adventures.

*I was already awake
**43 degrees Celsius

Notes:

• The Green Tortoise, follow link for details on this particular tour, but they do many more, including Canada, Alaska and Mexico, from a few days to several weeks.