We entred Utah just north of Page, Page was where we visited Antelope Canyon, the photos where on the Arizona blog. Antelope Canyon was just incredible and stunning, well worth the money we had to pay for our guide. Utah though has also been amazing, our first stop was Zion National Park, here we were treated to massive sandstone mountains that were once sand dunes, absolutely stunning and to see trees growing out of what looks to be solid rock was just incredible. This part of the States has been having cold weather and snow, our next stop was Bryce Canyon, it had been closed when we were at the Grand Canyon because of the snow, so as we made our way north from Zion we were treated to views of snow capped mountains, but we were also treated to the cold. We camped one night on our way to Bryce Canyon, it was minus one when we went to bed at 10.30 and when we woke in the morning the tent, ground and bike were covered in ice, the milk we left out wasn't thawed until 10am despite being in the sun from sunrise!
Bryce Canyon was another delight, amazing colours and formations made in the rocks by time and erosion. To get to Bryce we had to travel US12, a highway reputed to be the most scenic in the US, and it was incredible, it was the ideal bikers road with twists and turns, but it took us through everything from landscapes like Zion to canyons like Bryce, there were times we were riding along a razorback ridge with shear drop offs on each side of the road and no safety barriers, it was incredible. We also called through Capitol Reef National Park and Natural Bridges National Monument on our way east in Utah, then we ducked into Colorado to ride a scenic route through more snow capped mountains on our way north towards Moab where we planned to meet our friend Clyde. Clyde however was already in Moab and found that all the camping was gone, so he met us on route in Colorado and we stayed in a little town called Naturita where we spent some time talking to the old man that owned the park. He told us his life story and showed us some pictures of his car collection and his near new Chrysler Prowler, a 2000 model he bought new, now with 7500 miles on it, Chrysler only built 4500 of them. We had seen one other in Colorado Springs last year. From Naturita we headed north with Clyde to Colorado National Monument and were treated to some brilliant scenery and stunning gorges. We stayed here over night in the hope that Moab would have some room in it by Sunday night, but it didn't. We finished up camping on the Colorado river some 22 miles out of Moab. We then headed into Arches National Park were we were once again treated to natures beauty, stone formations you normally only see in other peoples photos. Next was Canyonlands National Park, here the Colorado and Green Rivers converge and each has its own canyon. The views over both canyons were incredible. It's just a pity, like I said about the Grand Canyon that the views are marred by the pollution in the air. We then continued north to Green River where we spent a well deserved day of rest. We had found a nice campground with everything we needed, including some shelter from the relentless winds we had been battling for nearly a week. Clyde had also come down with a cold and wasn't too healthy. So after a days rest we left Clyde to recuperate some more while we headed further north and took in another scenic route through Manti-La Sal National Forest. Here we saw more snow than we had seen anywhere and there was still ice on the lakes. We were headed into America's Memorial Long Weekend and everything was booked up, so when we found room at a campground in a place just north of Vernal called Dutch John we grabbed it. Monday of the long weekend we will continue north into Wyoming, we have already booked a couple of days in Yellowstone because we have been told that now the school holidays have started we will have real problems getting into popular tourist places, yay!