The Colorado Plateau
The high, redrock desert of the Colorado Plateau is one of the most beautiful places on earth. We love this region of high plateaus and deep narrow canyons, carved from ancient layers of colorful sandstone.
We Like to Hike in the Summer Heat
The travel and survival guides to the deserts of the American southwest all advise visitors to avoid strenuous activity such as hiking during the summer months. If you do visit in the summer, they suggest planning your hikes during the cooler parts of the day: morning and evening. And they're right; that's the smart thing to do.
Personally, we like nothing better than hiking off-trail across the desert slickrock in the shimmering heat and light of a mid-summer afternoon. We like the silence. We like the smell of hot juniper and stone and dust...
We also drink plenty of water and Gatorade.
It's a desert. It's supposed to be hot. We enjoy the heat and single-digit humidity. It makes our bones feel good to hike across the Navajo sandstone in 115 degree weather on a clear July afternoon. We usually start hallucinating the music from Looney Tune cartoons sometime around 4:00 in the afternoon when we're half-way back from our hike. It's usually uphill, and by that time the sunlight has weight and mass...