Touring in the US: Rocking up at the canyons

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.