Utah, Canyonlands and Arches NP - the movie locations

Colorado Canyon near Fisher Tower

Looking down on Vernal from Flaming Gorge

Untah tribal lands

Interstate 20 at Crescent Junction

Moab

La Sal Mountains from Arches NP

Balanced Rock, Arches NP

Balanced Rock and Balanced Harleys in Arches NP

South Window, Arches NP

Lost in Arches NP

The organ, Arches NP

Walking up Park Avenue, Arches NP

Looking back down Park Avenue in Arches NP

Looking through Mesa Arch towards La Sal mountains, Canyonlands NP

Tourist

Walking out to Murphy's Point

Murphy's Point, Island in the Sky, Canyonlands NP

Canyonland's NP near the Upheaval Dome

Stillwater Canyon, Canyonlands NP

Shafer's Trail, Canyonlands NP

Landscape Arch in Devil's Garden, Arches NP

Devil's Garden Trail, Arches NP

Fin Canyon in Devil's Garden, Arches NP

Diamond Window, Devil's Garden

Fin Canyon on Primitive Trail, Arches NP

Chipmunk  on the primitive trail

Fin Canyon

Three Gossips, Courthouse Towers, Arches NP

Newspaper Rock Historic Monument, Petroglyphs, Needles section, Canyonlands

North and South Six Shooter Peaks, Canyonlands Needles section

Driving into the Needles section of Canyonlands NP

Big Spring Canyon, Canyonlands NP

The Needles, Canyonlands NP

Utah contains the most remarkable and mesmerising landscapes but it is a state full of contradictions. As we arrived from the Flaming Gorge in Wyoming, we descended into the land of red sandstone. But the north of Utah is ravaged by mineral workings and the journey from Vernal via Roosevelt to Duchnesse was a highway from hell as we diced with massive oil tankers replete with matching trailers on a carriageway that exhibited all the bleak roadside decorative effects that define the USA. Massive signs for real estate, seedy motels, commercial premises spreading like cancer along the arterial highways, a clutter of scrap vehicles and equipment, a lack of grass and trees, an absence of any pedestrian infrastructure and a wirescape that shows no respect for Utah's magnificent bare red or grey landscapes.

We had driven 300 miles when we reached Duchnesse and decided to book into a motel. It was clean and new but when we asked for places to eat in Duchnesse, the County town, we were told the nearby pizza place was not very good, nor was the Chinese takeaway but there was a bar in the centre that served hot food. We went off to find it but rapidly retreated when we were confronted by a bank of one-armed bandits, men in stetsons and plates of food that could feed villages. We retreated to the cafe next door which was frequented by more men in Stetsons who shouted at their kids and wives and a menu that was high on calories and low on unprocessed foods. We escaped with the consolation that it had been cheap and returned to the motel to watch the adverts on TV which were occasionally interrupted by a programme.

The next day we headed up the scenic Indian Canyon on the 91 highway but we were once again tangling with the oil tankers on switchback roads that climbed to 9114ft.  We descended back to the plain passing a massive coal-burning power station and railways that told you that the earth was being extensively plundered. The town of Price held no attractions apart from observing the extraction and transport of minerals by rail and road. It was a drab and desolate mining country so we headed across the most tedious part of the route yet to Interstate 20 at Green River. We drew off the highway at Crescent Junction and took in the views of the Untah and Ouray Tribal lands to the north before continuing the journey south on the 191 to Moab. After the airfield the classic Utah landscapes beckoned, and we were confronted by massive red cliffs and monumental rockscapes, many of them familiar from a lifetime of browsing movies.

Moab is a tourist oasis and was fairly quiet in the late summer season. We had a light lunch in a vegetarian cafe before booking in at the hotel. Moab was to be our longest stop on the trip - 3 nights -  so that we could explore Canyonlands and Arches National Parks and enjoy some late summer heat. But we seemed dogged by Scottish weather, the pristine sunshine of the morning had given way to cloudy skies as we headed for Arches National Park. The quite staggering assembly of red sandstone arches and monuments did not have the wow factor that we were to witness a couple of days later on a return visit. Arches is a relatively small NP and after driving into the heart of the park we had a couple of walks around the Balanced Rock and Windows sections. On the return, we walked along the dry canyon floor of Park Avenue, a quite awe-inspiring dry river bed between massive rock architecture. The street was empty and it seemed a perfect end to the day.

The next day we had reserved for Canyonlands. It is split into three districts around the confluence of the Green and Colorado rivers and we headed for the northern section which is known as 'Island in the Sky'. It was 25 miles from Moab on empty roads. We were surprised on a perfect morning to be more or less the first to arrive at 8am. We decided to miss Dead Horse Point and drive to the highlights beyond the park entrance. We started at Mesa Arch and the views of the Colorado River canyon and La Sal mountains alone made the visit worthwhile. We were ahead of the crowds and had most of the sites to ourselves. We drove on to the Grand Viewpoint Overlook before walking out in the morning heat to Murphy's Point which gives stunning vistas to the Green River snaking its way through Stillwater Canyon. A superb walk and on our return we came across a racer snake as it emerged from a crack in the red sandstone pavement we were crossing.

We continued to the Green River Overlook and then the Upheaval Dome, a feature so complex that even geologists cannot explain its formation. Is it a meteorite crater or a dissolved salt dome? Whatever it made for good walking and we clambered to the far end of the walk. All the other walkers that made the trip were French or German and it did strike us that Americans seldom stray too far from their cars. A lady from Michigan had excused herself from the extra mile by saying that she had to get back for her dog which was gently baking in the car. We had overdosed on sandstone, sun and snakes by 3pm so headed back to Moab for ice cream but not before visiting the Schafer Canyon Overlook and the trail that sweeps down to the lower plateau and Colorado River.

In the evening we dined at a fine Japanese restaurant, Sabaku Sushi, and it served the best food yet. We met an amateur astronomer on the street and he invited us to view the moon through his telescope - it provided a remarkable view of the moon's craters, although we were a bit taken back when he asked for a dollar. Everything has a price in Utah apart from the landscapes, they are free unless they hold minerals in which case they are devastated.

The next morning brought sunshine and we headed back to Arches NP to seek out the more remote corners and eventually to take a long walk in the Devil's Garden. It was a spectacular outing and after visiting all the arches we decided to complete a 7-mile walk on the primitive trail that follows miniature stone cairns over and through fins of sandstone with some tricky scrambling involved. We completed this in the heat of the day and returned to Moab thoroughly spent from the exertions. However, a swim in the pool revived us sufficiently to explore the Colorado River east of Moab by a drive of 25 miles upriver to Fisher's Tower.

In the evening light, it was a glorious excursion and continued what had become a tour of the shooting locations for hundreds of movies including the Rio Grande, The Comancheros, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Thelma and Louise, Con-air, Geronimo, Star Trek and 127 hours. We were fully sated with the scenery so had our final meal at the Twisted Sistas cafe, another good choice although it must be stated that Moab also has its share of dreadful eating places.

We left early the next morning and headed to the Needles section of Canyonlands NP, 70 miles south of Moab. The long road into the Needles from the I65 passed some remarkable scenery with early carvings on the rock, some inselbergs as well as the more famous needles themselves. We were time-limited as we wanted to visit Mesa Verde in the late afternoon before driving on to the accommodation in Durango that we had just booked. So we returned early in the afternoon choosing to take the forest trail route over another high pass to Monticello. The threatened electric storm had arrived and for the second time on the trip, it was a hard rain that was gonna to fall. We stopped for coffee at a gas station in Monticello to recover from the storm and then drove through the heart of the bean-growing district to Cortez in Colorado en route to Mesa Verde.

North Window, Arches NP