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Interest in US national parks is set to peak when the service celebrates its centenary next year. Dave Richardson joins a Collette tour with a national parks focus
It’s six in the evening on a blistering hot August day in Scottsdale, Arizona, as we come downstairs at the Courtyard by Marriott with some trepidation. It’s time to meet the 41 people we’ll be spending the next 11 days with on Collette’s National Parks of America tour, and we’re being split into teams in the Chilli Cook-Off competition.
Everyone’s a bit awkward, but soon we’re sitting down to a buffet prepared by the hotel staff. Surprisingly we’re the only non-Americans on the tour and immediately become the object of curiosity. One old gent takes it on himself to tell me how great a country America is, but I feign an interest in the food and he gets the hint.
We’re already well into escorted tour mode before we set off the next morning, as Collette includes a chauffeured limo transfer to and from the UK airport (free within 100 miles) and we’d also been met at Phoenix airport. Ahead of us is an 11-day tour by coach and lots of experiences, not just the parks but the country where many Western films are set, and even an encounter with the Mormons.
There’s no mad scramble for seats near the front as Collette rotates passengers every day. Age range is predominantly over 60 but with the youngest about 40 and the oldest, with mobility scooter stowed underneath, being 90. Most are couples but a few are travelling solo.
The tour manager is the most important person onboard after the driver (a cool dude in shades called Matt Lewellen), and we’re lucky to have Derek Moscarelli, 22 years with Collette, as our guide, teacher, confidante and all-round mate. He is totally professional and unflappable throughout, and the tour operates on time almost to the minute over nearly 2,000 miles – a tribute to Collette’s planning.
Our first night stop is at Lake Powell, where the far-sightedness of Congress in setting up the national parks 100 years ago (the centenary is in 2016) comes home to me. In the visitor centre overlooking the mighty Glen Canyon dam I read a quotation from National Parks Service director Jon Jarvis: “The beginning of the national parks system coincides with the waning days of the Western frontier. It seemed like America could sense the force of its own ambition and realised it needed to step back, think and set aside a portion of its natural character and its cultural memory before it was too late.”
Glen Canyon dam is an impressive demonstration of that ambition, although it dates only from the 1960s. From the earliest days of settlement people’s aim was to exploit nature rather than to protect it, a sad example being the virtual extinction of the vast herds of buffalo (actually bison) as the railroads forged west. We would learn more about bison later in the tour.
We arrive at Grand Canyon on day three, by which time everyone is getting to grips with how the tour works. Friendships are starting to form, especially over dinner with a group meal included on six nights. Dinner is usually between six and seven, and people retire early as we leave at eight most mornings.
We visit the much less commercialised North Rim of Grand Canyon (most visitors go to South Rim) where it is spectacularly steep and narrow, and continue the next day to Zion Canyon for a very different experience travelling along the canyon floor. My favourite of the three canyons visited is Bryce, where the Hoodoos rock formations are amazing. We then come off the plateau and head for Salt Lake City, Utah for two nights. There’s a Mormon-led optional tour of the buildings around Temple Square but not the temple itself, which is reserved only for the most devout.
Stops for lunch and “rest rooms” are included every day, and Derek talks for some of the time about what we’ve seen or are about to see, with the occasional quiz. As we approach Jackson Hole, Wyoming (the only other two-night stop) the quiz, appropriately, is about Western films and songs.
Buffalo Bill, Butch Cassidy and Wild Bill Hickok are some of the real-life characters associated with this part of the tour, and in Jackson Hole (where almost every shop and bar is cowboy-themed) we head off to the Bar T5 Chuck Wagon dinner show. This starts with a 20-minute ride in covered wagons as we are assailed by characters dressed as a “mountain man” and Indians. Our coach driver Matt, on his 40th birthday, joins in on stage as we sing cowboy songs including Ghost riders in the sky by Johnny Cash.
Also in Jackson Hole we take an optional scenic raft trip on the Snake River where we see about 15 bald eagles, ospreys and plenty of merganser ducks. Continuing into the Rocky Mountains and Yellowstone national park, at last we see bison by the roadside as we explore a landscape bubbling with thermal features. Three hotels are grouped together around the most famous geyser, Old Faithful, but a 10-minute walk brings us to the much more spectacular Castle and Grand geysers.
After seeing the Buffalo Bill Center of the West with its five museums telling the story of the American West, we cross into South Dakota to spend the final day visiting two thought-provoking monuments. The immense Crazy Horse memorial was conceived by descendants of the Sioux warrior Lakota as a response to Mount Rushmore, to prove that Native Indians too have their heroes. Only part of the head is complete, this having taken more than 60 years as no federal funding is accepted. Moving to Mount Rushmore we arrive at a place of patriotic pilgrimage to admire the carved heads of presidents Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt. We take photos of Derek, Matt and each other with a presidential backdrop.
Everyone embraces at the final dinner in Rapid City, before we fly back via Chicago the next day. It really has been a great trip, covering 1,962 miles at temperatures ranging from 40C in Scottsdale to below freezing at Yellowstone. We’ll be happy to do more tours like this, and we even wave a fond goodbye to folks we tried to avoid at the start.
Book it: Collette offers the 13-day National Parks of America tour (UK back to UK) from £3,449 including return flights. |
