At almost 9,000 ft, the north rim is a couple of thousand feet higher than the south rim, so it’s cooler, wetter and gets more snow and fewer visitors. We camped at a campground just outside the national park and had our 17th consecutive night of thunderstorms. Yesterday was rainy and foggy, so not the best day for trying to see the canyon in all its vast splendour, but this morning it was fine, so we drove to Point Imperial and Cape Royal and did a few short walks to see down and across the canyon. Wonderful.

And now we’re in the biggest Sin City of them all … Las Vegas. Our end-of-holiday holiday – 4 nights in a suite at the Holiday Inn Desert Club Resort, a couple of blocks from The Strip, just behind The Venetian Hotel. Last time we were here, it was Easter and there were people everywhere. Seems like there are still people everywhere, although we haven’t been out exploring yet.

The Narrows canyon, Virgin River Zion National Park, about an hours walk into the canyon

The only way up the narrows in Zion is to wade up the Virgin river

HooDoos in Bryce Canyon National Park

The upper parts of the Narrows Zion National Park

The highest lookout on the Grand Canyon rim at 8,803 feet

The Colorado river snakes through the Grand Canyon 1,600 metres below North Rim

Camped at DeMotte Forest campground 40km north of North Rim, at 8,700 feet.

Looking down into Grand Canyon from North Rim, with the Colorado river, and south rim in the distance

More recently, the area was farmed by natives for several centuries until the 1200s, and there are petroglyphs (rock drawings) of animals and alien-looking people. Even more recently, in the 19th century, there were several Mormon settlements in the area, including Fruita which still has its original schoolhouse and a farmhouse which is now a general store. There is still a large orchard with peach and apple trees laden with fruit at the moment. Apparently it is possible to pick the fruit for free, but that’s a bit lost on me as I don’t like most fruit.

Crossing the Colorado River just upstream of Lake Powell

Camped at Whites Canyon near Lake Powell

Pueblo ruins that are 700+ years old

Mesa arch in Canyonlands National Park

The switchback trail down to the White Rim trail in Canyonlands National Park

The multiple guys we needed to hold the tent down when we had a severe thunderstorm when camped north of Canyonlands National Park.

When we camped at Whites Canyon the ground was too hard for pegs, so we had to use rocks to hold the tent down during the night-time desert winds

Our en-suite shower tent. We bought a gas heated shower in Denver, and with some plastic water pipe and fittings from Lowes hardware we made ourselves a shower tent.