During spring break, I had nothing to do, so I asked my school friends to go out and have fun. After considering the places I’ve been and the places they’ve been, I chose to go to the Grand Canyon, Antelope Canyon, Horseshoe Bay and Lake Powell from Las Vegas.
We almost lost out here, Antelope Canyon tickets need to be booked in advance, at least 1-3 days in advance! We didn’t know this when we went, so we didn’t book in advance. Luckily, there is a universal website, otherwise our trip would have been delayed by a whole day. You should know that Antelope Canyon is not a big park as you think, Antelope Canyon is between two mountains due to the former sea water scouring ah or weathering or something, between the two mountains formed a gap that only a person can pass, and then Antelope Canyon is most famous for the natural weathering of the rocks inside, as well as the canyon inside the light column due to the sun’s light.
How to play in Antelope Canyon, first of all, let’s talk about the entrance fee, the scenic area of Antelope Canyon belongs to the private nature, was contracted by the Indians. A total of only one or two travel companies seem to maintain the operation of the attractions, the attractions need to drive the car to the parking lot, in their modified chassis very high off-road truck into, self-drive is not able to enter, and will not let you enter. That’s why there are many people who visit these two companies every day to book tickets. The capacity of each truck is limited, plus the interior of the canyon is narrow and can only pass one person, so you can say in other words that the flow of passengers here is limited.
Why is it important to book tickets in advance? Let’s talk about the science next. As an example, imagine a square water pipe on the ground, ask when the sun is in what position, the bottom of the pipe can see the sun?
Yes, the sun can be seen at the bottom of the box when the sun is directly overhead. So that when the daily 11:00-13:00 tourist minibus, are the most popular time. If you miss this time, unfortunately, you can not see the light column, which is the same as saying that this classic you play one less. So ah, old iron listen to my words, set early! That’s right. Set the sun in the head of the time period into the Antelope Canyon, you can get to the best experience.
When buying tickets, you should note that there are two groups to choose from, one is a tourist group, the other is a photography group, depending on your needs, the photography group will be more than tourists for half an hour I remember, there is more time to take pictures, and in the light column where their guide will help you drive away the crowd, so that your photos clear some.
Lower Antelope Canyon seems to be playable, where belongs to the national park area, I heard it is also quite interesting, but we did not go there because we are lazy, sleep until 10 o’clock every day to go, so we did not go, interested friends can search for themselves on the Internet to play the Lower Antelope Canyon.
About the time difference：
Arizona is a very unique state. Other states have daylight saving time and winter time. This state does not! If you start from Las Vegas, Nevada, you will need to travel through 3 states to reach the Antelope Canyon. The time difference between these three states changes from one to another. The approximate picture looks like this.
You can see here depending on the month and season you are going, and calculate the time difference yourself. It’s good to have socialism to save us from this kind of trouble.
Day 1: LA to Las Vegas
On the first day of spring break, I got up in the morning and found a classmate to take me to the Long Beach Airport Hertz car rental office, rented a car and we both drove back to Irvine to wait for a classmate, ate a taste of ramen at noon and hit the road, this may be the last Asian meal we eat these days.
The 8-hour drive was not tiring or boring with me and a classmate driving around. In the evening, we arrived in Las Vegas, we had dinner and then went to the supermarket to restock the car with supplies, mineral water, small food and other things, as well as Coke and drinks.
Day 2: Colorado Grand Canyon
After getting up in the morning, we had breakfast at the hotel, ordinary scrambled eggs and bacon sausage, and after we were full, we drove to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon.
South Gate queue of cars lined up for a kilometer, drove half an hour to move 500 meters, I can not think of such a wild place is also congested, the entrance fee of $ 25 per car, 7 days free access.
After coming in and parking the car, the first thing I did was to pick up the map in my hand and look at it. The map marked the red route to the Hermit’s Path as the most popular route, so we drove the car directly to the nearby parking teahouse and went ahead on foot. I remember a total of four routes to choose from, each route is a well-developed scenic spot with about 5-15 viewpoints, if you get off at every stop/every viewpoint, it takes about 3-4 hours to walk through a route. So it is recommended that you deliberate which line is most interesting and choose one to go, after all, the other lines are also a 360-degree view of the canyon, there is no other special place.
In March, it actually snowed, if you look closely at the picture below you can see the white dots, which are snowflakes.
In front of you is the Grand Canyon Park bus, which is free to ride after you come in. It runs once every 15 minutes and can go to any attraction or location in the park. It seems that the last bus at 5:00 pm, do not miss the oh.
In fact, I have always admired the level of road construction in the United States, how dangerous the road can give you a flat, the road inside the Grand Canyon National Park, driving is very good.
Part of the Grand Canyon National Park area is prohibited to fly drones Oh! Pay attention to the observation, do not try the law with your body.
In the afternoon, the sky gradually turned better, not snow, the fog also dispersed. In fact, the Grand Canyon is only beautiful when there is sun, the sun shines on the rocks, hitting a red piece.
We took the red line on the map and basically got off at every stop (each stop was a viewpoint) and reached the Hermits Rest viewpoint at 5:00, unfortunately the walking route was closed at 5:00 and we had to take the last bus back to where we started parking, so we had to take the bus back. It takes about 3 hours to walk, and night roads are too dangerous in such a wild place.
From the Grand Canyon to drive back, all the way gradually dark sky, arrived flagstaff almost 8 o’clock, this mouth to stop and watch carefully, do not take the wrong hahaha.
Day 3: Red Rock Park – Paige – Lake Powell
In fact, the road from Flagstaff to Lake Powell is less than 200 kilometers, driving all the way there is only two hours or so. So we decided to look for some fun places nearby, but unfortunately there was nothing to do nearby except the Grand Canyon, and the only place we found was a place called Red Rock State Park. We drove an hour from Flagstaff to this place, which is actually just big red rocks to see and a lot of forest trails walking routes, more suitable for donkeys who like to hike. We didn’t like walking very much, and we were both afraid of bugs, so we just took a short detour to take pictures and got out. It was not too crowded and very beautiful.
After about an hour, we left the area and drove 3 hours to Lake Powell, near the small town of Page. The road was deserted rocky plains all the way, and the roads were still in good condition.
When we got to Page, near Lake Powell, it felt like there was nothing else in the area but rocky rocks, and Lake Powell was just an exciting location – a very large lake. There are red rocky hills in the distance, which are especially beautiful at sunset.
I’d like to give a shout out to the hotel we stayed at, Lake Powell Resort, which is in an amazing location. I can give you a guarantee here. There is no hotel distance from this hotel from Lake Powell also into, and this hotel has a lake view room. ah, other hotels, there is no. You heard it right, even the Marriott inside the city does not have a lake view room, because he needs to drive 10 minutes in the city to Lake Powell near. This hotel has a marina on Lake Powell. I personally feel as if I have not seen any other marina on Lake Powell. Also, this hotel has a restaurant with a view of Lake Powell.
Lastly, this hotel is only about 10 minutes from downtown Page, Antelope Canyon, Horseshoe Bay, and the hydroelectric power station, so with the location of Lake Powell, it was the most satisfying hotel I stayed at on my trip. Recommended!
Day 4: Antelope Canyon – Horseshoe Bay
In the morning, we had an appointment to meet our friends at the door at 9:00, and we were all on time. At 9:00 sharp, we heard the ringing of the door opening across the street, and we went to the hotel’s restaurant together for breakfast.
We learned that the hotel has a breakfast buffet in the morning, but you can also order a la carte, but generally a la carte costs about 15 yuan, the buffet only costs 20 yuan per person, we can eat more, so we all ordered the buffet.
You say coincidentally, the checkout time, the hotel for unknown reasons, POS machine no network signal, as if the satellite network device is broken, so the restaurant decided to give us three people free of charge, dinner without paying hahaha. We do not have a lot of cash on us, three people on 5 yuan, the cash are given to the waiter as a tip, after all, people still pay the labor.
After eating, we had no network signal, we could only use Google offline map to find the location of the Antelope Canyon scenic spot, fortunately cached the offline map, and arrived at this scenic spot at the appointed time.
This is the parking lot of the scenic area, see the front of the kind of pickup truck with a shed behind the car, we are going to do that kind of car into the chassis was deliberately raised to adapt to mountain driving, ordinary SUVs and cars can not enter, the car will be ruined.
After getting into the car, the pickup truck drove about 10 minutes to the foot of the mountain in a position to stop the car, the front can see a mountain peak, the middle and a gap, only through 1 person, the car can not enter. The road ahead is the scenic area, we need to walk in.
The most famous thing is the pillar of light in here, because there is a hole at the top of the valley, at noon the sunlight can be directed to the bottom of the valley. As I said earlier, the tour group chooses the 11:00-13:00 time period, when the sun is overhead, only then can you see the pillar of light.
You can see that the valley is very narrow and anyone going in the opposite direction needs to be courteous to each other.
After coming out of Antelope Canyon, we went to have lunch. Thanks to the McDonald’s group for making the same taste of food all over the world, the only choice for lunch was McDonald’s. There is a saying that the reason why McDonald’s fries are so expensive is because the McDonald’s head office transports the raw materials from the United States to ensure the consistency of the taste of both foods worldwide. But it is true that in any place to eat McDonald’s fries are a taste. I’m also thankful that developed countries like the United States have McDonald’s in places where there are no cities for hundreds of kilometers, although it’s not as good as Chinese food, but at least it’s still swallowable.
After lunch at McDonald’s, the afternoon’s attraction was Horseshoe Bay, which was a 20-minute drive away, just outside the gates of our resort. The parking area at Horseshoe Bay is very small and there are too many tourists who park their cars on the side of the road, so we parked our cars on the side of the road and walked in. There is a small hill to climb, not too high, to see the Horseshoe Bay.
Inside the Horseshoe Bay, there is a small hill to climb up for a better view and a rock on top suitable for taking pictures, probably like this. This rock needs to climb up the hill, the hill is not high but also quite dangerous, pay attention to safety. Standing on it, you can see the highest point of the panoramic view of Horseshoe Bay.
After seeing Horseshoe Bay, we went back to the resort hotel, this is the bridge to the resort hotel must pass, below is a dam, and power station. After returning to the hotel to rest for a while will be dedicated to this place to play, take pictures and so on.
This is the dam seen from the bridge. Our hotel is 10 minutes upstream by car. This is the only road into the hotel, next to all the red rocks. After coming from the bridge, the road into the hotel is part of the nature reserve, and there are about 3-4 viewpoints on this road, which can have very beautiful views. If you are not in a hurry, you can stop at each parking area to have a look.
After returning to the hotel, we managed to make a reservation for dinner at 5:30 pm. Sunset was around 6:30pm, so we could dine while waiting for the sunset. The comfortable restaurant environment and the perfect window seats with floor-to-ceiling windows allowed us to see the beautiful view of the surrounding area. End of our spring break trip.
