Back in Utah for the next several days, starting with two days in a spot I've been looking forward to visiting for ages - Zion National Park!

Zion is yet another of Utah's many scenic stunners, and immediately we were in awe of the place! The park covers 229 square miles (590km), a prominent feature of which is Zion Canyon where we'll be spending our time.

Zion Canyon is 15 miles (24km) long and up to half a mile (800m) deep! The park as a whole rises 5,000 feet (1,500m) from its lowest to highest elevation, and therefore contains enormous plant and animal diversity (the latter of which we nearly ran over with the car on the way in - twice). That aside, Zion includes mountains, canyons, buttes, mesas, monoliths, rivers, slot canyons, and natural arches, all in a 100 F (38 C) summer climate. So much to see, and so much sweating to do!

This little guy here (little at this time of year) is responsible for Zion Canyon. The Virgin River is a tributary of the Colorado River, and over the course of however many millions of years has carved its way through the canyon.

We spent today checking out a couple of easy trails in the canyon, the first of which took us to the so-called Emerald Pools, which at this time of year are little more than puddles in the ground. In spring the melting snow turns this into a far more impressive sight, with a waterfall gushing down from overhead instead of the mere trickle you see here.

Then we checked out Weeping Rock, where water is literally weeping out of the rock face. Because the cliff sandstone is porous, it acts as a vertical reservoir as snowmelt percolates down through it. When it reaches an impermeable layer of rock however, the moisture is basically forced outwards, travelling along cracks until it emerges from the canyon walls. This process takes between 900 to 1,200 years (based on testing by the Zion's hydrologists). In other words, the water you see here fell as snow some 1,000 years ago, and has been working its way through the rocks ever since! Much further along the canyon, the some process takes around 4,000 years. Kinda mind-boggling!

So that was it for today but we've got something even better planned for tomorrow, centred around the Virgin River :)

Our day today started ordinarily enough, with a nice one-mile stroll this morning along a paved path following the Virgin River through Zion Canyon.

Then that nice paved path ended, and we all got in the river instead to continue the hike hehe.

This is the absolute must-do activity in Zion National Park - hiking to and through The Narrows! The Narrows is the name given to the upper section of Zion Canyon because, as you can see, the canyon narrows markedly here - as little as 18 feet (6m) wide and as much as 2,000 feet (600m) deep. This is in stark contrast to the lower section that we'd been exploring yesterday. The reason for this is the rock that makes up the canyon walls in this section is much harder than that of the lower section, and is therefore harder for the river to cut through. The river cuts straight down instead, and this is the incredible result!

The full hike is 16 miles (26km) end-to-end, or as many as you can fit into the day as a round-trip. Hiking is done largely in the river itself, due to it running from wall to wall for a large portion of the route. Given the low water level at this time of year, we only had it up to waist-deep in a few places, but at other times of the year a little swimming may be required,

Not a bad spot for lunch.

Despite appearances, this is actually a very family-friendly activity (especially in summer), and as such the river was absolutely littered with people. As we ventured further and further into the canyon however, we had much of it to ourselves.

Every bend in the canyon was another amazing sight with millions of years of erosion on display.

After about four miles we hit a split in the canyon, with an even narrower slot canyon branching off from the main canyon.

We love detours, so into the narrow abyss we went!

We meandered around in there for a good half hour or so and climbed over a few waterfalls before hitting a water depth that would require swimming to get past. With $5,000 of camera gear on my back we thought better of it and started heading back, though I would have loved to have kept going!

We had the sun overhead for most of the trip in, but with everything now in shadow on the way back I had a field day with the camera! Everywhere I looked was a photo opportunity, which is rather frustrating when there's only so much time in the day. Suffice it to say it's beautiful down here!

As the sun got lower the rock faces literally glowed with deep oranges and reds - very cool! Spot little old Kristina down there against that enormous backdrop.

Eventually the canyon widened again and we found our way out. That was easily one of the coolest things we've ever done or seen, and something that makes Zion rather unique - most canyons can only be explored from the top looking down rather than along the canyon floor itself.

Quick sunset photo for mark the end of our stay in Zion.

Oh, and a quick night-sky photo, looking directly above our campsite with the trees illuminated by neighbouring campfires :)

Our route today took us through the two million-acre Dixie National Forest, and deep into Mormon country. We were even offered a free Book of Mormon with our lunch hahaha!

Our destination for the day however was a spot characterized by these limestone and mudstone structures, known as "Hoodoos".

This is Bryce Canyon National Park, the major feature of which is Bryce Canyon here - an otherworldly spot if ever there was one, and a great example of erosion at work! Despite the name, this is not actually a canyon, but rather a collection of giant natural amphitheatres. Due to the park's altitude and distance from the nearest metropolis, the air quality here is normally some of the best in the country which allows for up to 200 miles of visibility. However, the air is a little smoky just now courtesy of the usual bout of California wildfires going on at the moment (which may or may not impact us later on).

The park is full of overlooks and trails, of which we tackled the most popular which heads deep down to the canyon floor.

Bryce is distinctive due to these hoodoos, which are the result of snowmelt and rain water seeping into the limestone and mudstone and freezing over winter. As we all know, water expands as it freezes, and this expansion fractures the rock and causes it to fall way. Naturally acidic rain then rounds off the edges and this is what we end up with, after however many hundreds of years. They don't last forever though - eventually each hoodoo crumbles into a heap and gets replaced, and so on and so on the process goes.

The consistency of the rock is like dry, crumbly clay. One good whack with a sledge hammer would probably bring it down.

I'd be in heaven if this was a road, but it's a different story when you have to walk up it.

Down on the canyon floor its hoodoo city, with some of them up to 200 feet (60m) in height! Quite an amazing sight.

Six-foot Kristina amid 200-foot hoodoos.

So that's Bryce Canyon, and that's our time in Utah's infamous national parks. Tomorrow we head up to Salt Lake City - our first major city since Denver almost two weeks ago.

Hooray for camping (interspersed with hotel nights :)

Greetings from a very smoky Salt Lake City, Utah. I mentioned yesterday the smoke wafting over this way from the California wildfires raging out of control at the moment, and it was very evident during the drive up here today. Huge mountains in the distance were barely visible, and even those around Salt Lake in a near-distance are looking grey. Anyway, we're kicking back for the night and studying our Book of Mormon, before exploring this salty smoky place tomorrow.

Salt Lake City, the capital city of the state of Utah and originally named Great Salt Lake City after the nearby Great Salt Lake which, as you might have guessed from the name, is large and salty. Anyway, SLC was founded in 1847 by Brigham Young along with several other Mormon followers after the death of Joseph Smith in 1844, himself the founder of Mormonism and the Latter Day Saint movement. The arid desert land here was deemed by the Mormons a desirable place where they could practice their religion without harassment, as they had encountered elsewhere in the country due to their beliefs conflicting with those of the Christian Church. Today, 40% of SLC's 200,000 residents and 60% of Utah's 2.9 million residents are reported to be Mormon, which greatly influences the culture and daily life here.

This area here is Temple Square, a 10-acre complex which is the headquarters of the LDS Church. The centrepiece of it all is Salt Lake Temple - the largest LDS temple by floor area. It was dedicated in 1893 after 40 years of construction, and entry is off-limits to non-LDS.

Directly across from the temple is the Joseph Smith Memorial Building, originally a hotel but later named in honour of the LDS founder. Smith was murdered in 1844 by an armed mob while he was in jail awaiting trial for various bogus charges. Tough times.

Elsewhere in SLC we have the five-star Grand America Hotel. Almost no cost was spared on building the hotel in 2001, which was intended to be "the best hotel ever built". Indeed it is often rated among the best hotels in America. Since we were in the area, we wandered in for a nosey.

The hotel features 775 rooms and suites, a full-service spa, indoor and outdoor pools, and some of the most expensive chandeliers and mirrors in the Western Hemisphere. Too bad Kristina couldn't hook us up with a night here ;)

It also features an awesome toy store hehe.

Elsewhere we have the usual sights for state capitals and large cities: left is the Utah State Capitol building (the house of government for Utah), and right is the Salt Lake City and County Building (the seat of government for SLC). Lovely.

Here we have the Salt Lake City Public Library. Opened in 2003 (replacing an older library), it's a must-see for book nerds and architecture nerds. Apparently it's also a must for people wanting to commit suicide given the library's open design, with several people throwing themselves from the balconies up there or from the roof of the building itself.

And that's Salt Lake City in a nutshell. Seems nice enough, but much like we found back in Denver, there seems to be a disproportionate number of strange people walking around - most who appear to be high as a kite on something. The city also seems to be popular with transvestites. Outside the library while waiting for the light rail to arrive we encountered two pre-op trannies on the platform (originally males), and one post-op on the train (a guy with a brand new pair of tits). Meanwhile, smoke from the wildfires is still wafting over this way. We weren't aware of this but apparently there are also fires raging in Washington and Idaho states at the moment, as well as those we already knew about in California. We're due to hit Washington in a just a couple weeks, followed shortly thereafter by California, so hopefully we won't be impacted but we'll see.

90 minutes west of Salt Lake City is this big white salty expanse - the Bonneville Salt Flats, part of the much larger Great Salt Lake Desert. The Bonneville Salt Flats are a densely-packed salt pan covering an area of 40 square miles (104km), which is a remnant of the prehistoric Lake Bonneville. Access to the flats is free and visitors are able to walk and drive around, provided you don't mind getting covered in crusty salt (it really does stick to everything).

The Bonneville Salt Flats are probably best known for the Bonneville Speedway, an area of the flats that is groomed and marked out for motor sports. It is particularly noted as the venue for numerous land speed records (to folks back in New Zealand, you should watch The World's Fastest Indian if you haven't already). As luck would have it, we happened to witness a record attempt today which took place just ten minutes after we arrived. This beast of a thing is a streamliner owned by Monaco-based Venturi Automobiles. It's powered by two electric motors (each powering a single axle), and it flew past us today at 280mph (450km)! Video here.

We took our own beast onto the salt for a quick blat, and it came off the salt completely covered in white hehe (after which it got a thorough wash!).

Kristina and I had our own fun on the salt.

A bit of Frisbee...

And a bit of fencing with our walking sticks from Zion National Park, which Kristina won ;) We're now somewhere in Idaho for the night before heading through the Grand Teton National Park tomorrow, followed by Yellowstone National Park. Good stuff!