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canyon on locally made bikes designed specifically for the terrain, with hydraulic brakes and pedal-assist technology. They also have speedometers to show just how fast you’re going, and on some of the downhill freewheels you can push it wonderfully close to the park’s vehicle speed limit of 35mph. It’s a series of canyons, rather than one, with a loop road running through them, which makes for a different look in each section. At Willow Springs, for example, there are giant purple swirls in the rocks, big-horned sheep clambering over the mountainsides and mysterious red handprints on the rocks, thought to be from a tribe that lived there 2,000 years ago. The highway near the end of the route, however, has a thoroughly different vibe, with an epic panorama of unsullied blue sky flanked by rising sandstone. Considerably more


claustrophobic is the Techatticup Mine in the southwestern corner of Nevada. This harks back to the gold rush days in the Eldorado


Canyon back in the mid-19th century. There are still gold deposits within the mine, but at present it’s too expensive to extract them. So the mine, and the surrounding settlement, have been turned into a tourist attraction. The place’s wild-west look makes it popular for filming movies and album cover shoots. There’s an agreeable weirdness


to it – the original general store is full of stuffed animal heads and life-sized alien models – while tours through the three miles of cramped tunnels inside the mine are packed with grim and gruesome stories. These include those of donkeys who were hog-tied, put into leather bags and then lowered down into the mine, and a man who died after an explosion sent an iron peg through his head. It may not come as a surprise to learn that the mine is supposedly haunted. But southwest Nevada can do arty as well as spooky. The dusty crater of the Jean Dry Lake has been turned into a giant installation by Swiss artist Ugo


LEFT: Red E Bike Tours


BELOW LEFT: Helicopter tour over the Grand Canyon


RIGHT: Zabriskie Point


The stark mountain ranges


Tours through the mine’s three miles of cramped tunnels are packed with grim and gruesome stories


Rondinone. Among the bone-dry mountains, ferocious heat and joshua trees, he has carefully balanced towers of painted limestone boulders, known as the Seven Magic Mountains. The bright pinks, yellows and


oranges look as if someone has been let loose with a giant fluorescent marker pen, and give the impression of being somewhat psychedelic cairns. The jolting juxtaposition with the surrounding landscape certainly makes them memorable.


 ARIZONA It generally takes three hours to drive from Las Vegas to the Grand Canyon – and a coach trip makes for a long and wearying day. So the most spectacular way to visit is by helicopter. Maverick Helicopters has a fleet that takes off over Vegas, checking out the super-sized resorts from above, before flying out over the parched desert.


98travelweekly.co.uk31 January 2019


make for spectacular viewing, as does the deep blue of Lake Mead, an artificial lake that spills into craggy mini-gorges. It was created by the Hoover Dam, which blocked the Colorado River on the Nevada-Arizona border. Only a 45-minute drive


from Vegas, the dam is worth a separate visit. It’s an extraordinary feat of engineering – go inside to learn about the history and how it works, or view from outside to enjoy the wow factor of this colossal slab of concrete plugging a canyon. The helicopter flight passes hiking trails, dry river beds and wild populations of horses and cows that are descended from those turned loose by their owners. It then heads into the Grand Canyon itself to park up next to the Colorado River. Here, the intimidating three-quarter- mile-high canyon walls are lined with layers of sand and sediment, while smaller canyons branch off from them. It’s not just one long canyon – it’s a system of them.


 UTAH Drive northeast from Vegas for just over two-and-a-half hours, and you’ll hit one of the true stars of the country’s national parks system. Zion National Park is the first in a string across southern Utah, and it’s a magnificent place,


PICTURES: MAVERICK HELICOPTERS; RED E BIKE TOURS/JAN WRIGHT; VISIT CALIFORNIA/MAX WHITTAKER; SHUTTERSTOCK


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