Vistas on a grand scale

In the high sierra, counting off the canyons, Penny Batchelor visits south-west USA for a road trip round the area's once seen, never forgotten landscapes

When I visit the US I feel as if I’ve gone to heaven, without the dying part.

Thanks to having disability legislation way before we did in the UK, America is an accessibility dream. For my trip around the landscapes of Nevada, Arizona and Utah I went armed with my UK blue badge – and found it afforded me the same benefits as my American counterparts. US national parks are extremely geared up for disabled visitors. Chauffeured by my friend, we set out to see the area’s canyons by road, boat and air.

A four-hour drive from Las Vegas, our canyon number one has the biblical name of Zion. This Utah National Park is less well known than the Grand Canyon, which equates to less visitors and more viewing space to yourself.

As we intended to visit quite a few National Parks on our trip we bought an annual pass for $80. This is valid for every National Park in the US. From Spring through to Autumn visitors can only get around Zion using regular shuttle buses. The buses are wheelchair-accessible and it’s well worth using them - a recorded tape plays a mine of useful history and information about Zion.

All the National Parks have a visitor centre and give out information on facilities for disabled people. These include audio-described videos, assistive listening devices and accessible paths.

Whilst the scenery from the shuttle bus is impressive, the best way to see the scale and the depth of Zion Canyon is by taking a trail. Unfortunately I found that one trail marked wheelchair-accessible would be more suitable to a strong-armed Paralympic athlete rather than your average Joe. Getting off the shuttle bus at the last stop, called the Temple of Sinawava, I attempted the “Riverside Walk”. By the clear river it was, but the “walk” was more of a steep bumpy trail. I turned round half way and went back. Still, full marks for trying!

The drive to our hotel for the night took us through a tunnel chiselled through the canyon, complete with little windows cut through the rock so you can see where you are going. We then drove past Red Canyon: swirly-pink, whipped dessert-esque pillars of rock so spectacular that they look as if they have been created for a film set. Not so. This is natural scenery, Utah style.

National Park number two was Bryce Canyon. It’s as stunning as Zion but being further away from Las Vegas has even less visitors. Presumably because of the fewer numbers, tourists can drive to its numerous viewpoints. From a scenic point of view it’s very accessible – the vista of the natural bridge, where the rock underneath had eroded to create two pillars and a top, was my favourite.

The south-west USA suffers from water shortages. One solution to this in the 1960s was to dam part of the Colorado River and use the canyon as a reservoir. Glen Canyon now has a recreational area called Lake Powell. I’d seen canyons by car and foot – now was my chance to see one by boat.

The white lines on the rock, which are actually rust, are nicknamed the “bathtub ring”. These lines show the highest point the waters of the lake reached in 1983.

Starting out in a huge expanse of lake, our cruiser toured the area as far down as Antelope Canyon where we were so deep into the canyon there was barely enough room for the boat to turn round. Here I really got a sense of the huge scale of the canyon.

I must be one of the only people in the country who haven’t seen a Western movie. Our next stop, Monument Valley, is immediately recognisable so I’m told as being the backdrop for John Wayne and his ilk battling with the unpolitically-correctly named Red Indians. One of the most famous sites is the Mittens. I didn’t understand the name. Mittens? A bit of a girly name for rocks in the searing heat of the desert isn’t it? That was until it was pointed out to me that the two rocks look like… a pair of mittens with the thumbs sticking up.

Monument Valley is not a national park, it is Navajo Nation land. Native Americans own and run the one hotel within the valley, aptly called “The View” for the vista it gives residents of the Mittens and other rocks. We took a jeep tour to explore the desert and go into private land. Most of the rocks have names for their appearance – there’s a totem pole, an elephant, and even a Snoopy. It takes a bit of imagination to see the likeness in some of them but once it had clicked I was well away. The Three Sisters? No problem. Elephant Butte? Yep, there’s the “trunk”.

Our last stop was back in national park territory. We’d saved the best known until last – Arizona’s Grand Canyon.

Tourists daytripping from Las Vegas tend to visit the closest part of the canyon to them which is the west rim. It’s there where the skywalk viewing platform opened in 2007. We, however, headed to a wider part of the canyon where our guidebook said the views are more spectacular – the south rim. By showing my UK blue disabled parking badge at the park’s entrance we received a pass enabling us to drive down roads that others can only access by shuttle bus. One such road took us to Yaki Point, which I thought gave us the best views.

The Hermit’s Rest route was another road accessible to us by using our disability pass. From the Hermit’s Rest point to Pima Point there’s a great wheelchair trail following the rim of the canyon, offering views of the turquoise Colorado River cutting its way through the bottom. Paved and fairly flat, the accessible trail does what it says on the tin. At 1.1 miles it’s manageable and you can catch the free shuttle bus back to the car if you don’t want to walk or push all the way back again.

Yet my most memorable view of the Grand Canyon was from the air. As the helicopter trip we’d taken reached the canyon’s rim, Holst’s Mars from The Planets dramatically played through our headsets. From the air I could see how vast the Canyon is and the huge distance between the north and south rims – so wide that they even have different ecosystems.

As canyons go, this one really is grand.