Marc (44) and Rachel (29) were our hosts for our time in Arizona and once again, it couldn’t have been any better. They were not at home when we arrived, but they left the door unlocked and we made ourselves comfortable in one of the two guest rooms we were allowed to choose from. After they came back we talked a bit and they gave us some good hints for our visit of Sedona, which was planned the next day, which basically keeled us over.
Sedona is approximately 30 minutes away from Flagstaff, and the road leads through a gorgeous canyon. We basically couldn’t close our mouth for probably 50% of the drive, because we never saw anything similar. Orange and red cliffs and mountains covered with rich green grass in the strangest formations. The town Sedona itself is built in-between that canyon and looks like on a canvas. We climbed up one of those mountains, Cathedral Rock, which offers an amazing view over the Valley. Later we saw Bell Rock (looks like a bell), the Courthouse and the chapel “Holy Cross” which is attached to one of those rocks. We also did a small lunch break at the small river which flows through the valley and drove to the trailhead of the second walk of the day, which should lead us to the Natural Bridge.
Our hiking guide book was a bit out of date (it was already 7 y.o.) because the road which was meant to be “difficult dirt road, but no problem for usual passenger vehicles”, figured out to be impossible for our car and was only opened for 4WD. So we had to walk the additional 1.5 miles from the carpark to the actual start of the trail. It was not a difficult walk, but we found 1.5 miles along a road really boring. That’s why we tried to hitchhike with the first car wanting to overtake us and it worked out instantly and we got in touch with Shawn and Emily from Phoenix. Driving was apparently much more fun (even though not significantly faster 🙂 ) than walking. We directly had a good connection with them and we walked together to the natural bridge (which gave us a ride back in addition 🙂 ) Once we arrived at the bridge, we crossed it for sure, which apparently looks scarier than it actually was. However, it was an incredible feeling to stay on a 50-150cm thick stone 40m over the ground. After an obligatory beer on the bridge we went back to the car and wanted to watch the sunset, but there were so many clouds making it really uninteresting. Back at home we chatted with Marc and Rachel who made dinner for us and planned the next day, the GRAND CANYON.
The two already warned us, that the park might be quite crowded and unfortunately they were right. It took us 30 minutes until we could enter the park (because one has to pay the entry, or in our case show our annual pass). Finally arrived and got a parking lot, we directly started the track Marc and Rachel recommended us and soon we arrived at the rim of the Grand Canyon. The view is not from this world… It’s literally not possible to take a picture capturing the dimensions. You stay there and think you just stay in front of an enormous canvas. Maybe our walk illustrates this at least a bit. As we wanted to see as much as possible, we decided to walk downhill as long as we can. In the following we walked 735m altitude, and we were not even close to the bottom and the Colorado River, or even able to see it (For better understanding, the Burj al Arab in Dubai is 830m high). The scenery looks even more unreal if you watch it from farer downhill. Just unbelievable majestic. Arrived at the 3-miles checkpoint we decided to have lunch and turn back as we wanted to see the other parts of the national park as well. On the way back we made a connection which seems to become quite usual during our trip. While overtaking a couple we got into chatting with them, as they liked following our speed. So we did most of the walk together and talked with Stephen and Victoria who had something like a blind date the other evening (not the worst idea to do that at Grand Canyon) and were on the way back from a “romantic” picnic. Stephen is actually from San Diego, and offered us to host us when we come to San Diego after we arrived at the top (and had to fill out a survey measuring our drinking behaviour during these really high temperatures^^). So cool the Americans!!!
After this track (which we thought was much easier than expected), we took the free shuttle bus along the canyon to some viewpoints and drove to Lipan Point to watch the sunset. The Colorado River makes a 90° curve there why one gets an awesome view into two different canyons. The sunset itself was not extraordinary but the canyon is lighted in a weird shiny light which makes it really beautiful.
Obviously, we were back in Flagstaff quite late (and therefore had a really bad feeling as we didn’t spend a lot of time with our hosts), why we arranged to go swimming together with them the next afternoon. In the morning we extended the rental of our car for another two weeks, because we definitely would need more time in Utah/Arizona than we actually planned. Later, Marc and Rachel took us to a little canyon, around 60 miles away! One of the best swimming spots we’ve ever seen and kind of a secret hint. The canyon is between 2 and 15 m high and perfect for jumping into the water (which had a really comfortable temperature). There were also two other friends of them along, one of them had an inflatable Stand-Up-Paddle-Board we could borrow to follow the river a while. It was totally relaxing and a lot of fun, within this amazing scenery.
In the evening we were finally able to cook for Marc and Rachel and left early next morning to continue cruising once around the Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon was our next stop…