National Parks besides Grand Canyon? - recommendations please

[unfocused]

One more thing to be aware of at Grand Canyon. This is one of the few places in the country where you are might see California Condors. Like the tourists, they frequent the South Canyon rim near the grand hotels, so if they happen to be in the vicinity, you have a good chance of seeing one. Stop at the ranger station and ask about sightings.

One cool thing about them is that every adult is tagged. So if you do get lucky and get a shot of one, you can look him or her up on the internet and find out its life history.

Finally, after you are done getting your shots from the rim, look away from the canyon and study the nearby trees. You are likely to see mule deer grazing.

Good luck and enjoy.

 

[Cali_PH]

Thought I'd share a couple of sites I ran across doing research for Valley of Fire before:

Synnatsche's Secrets of the Southwest - Website of a German couple that are talented travel/landscape photogs. They have travelogues of some of the southwest's most interesting places; it's in German, so most people will need to use Google translate or something like that to read it. Or just look at the pretty pictures I used the website to discover some places I'd never heard of before; the gallery includes other parts of the US too.

The page I linked to has some fantastic shots of Valley of Fire. There are also links on it to the Valley of Fire travelogue, as well as their eGUIDE about Valley of Fire. Great pictures and lots of locations with *** coordinates, tips, if the location is a sunrise/sunset/afternoon location, etc. Well worth the $5 or so IMHO.

Sunset Cities Valley of Fire Info - Has a lot of good basic info on the park (directions, fees, etc.) and lots of pictures about various parts, but the picture quality isn't great.

If you're there around sunset, don't be surprised to see a wedding or wedding photoshoot, seems like a lot of people drive up from Vegas for that.

EDIT - for the car rentals, if you can, check more than one discount site (Hotwire, Travelocity, Kayak etc). Not sure which ones you might have access to if you're in China. Usually they're all relatively close to each other, but sometimes one will give you a great deal. For example, when I've gone to Oahu the past couple of years, most the sites would quote me basically the same prices but Hotwire was ridiculously cheaper for some reason (two times I got a mid-size car for $9.95).

EDIT 2 - A friend asked me to help with directions to the Fire Wave in Valley of Fire, so I threw something together on google maps. Thought I'd put it here too, in case it helps anyone.

Fire Wave map

 

[kaihp]

Cali_PH: I seriously owe you a beer now for the rental links! This will save me for hundreds compared to what I had found myself.
The Kayak site works for me, but the hotwire site is just fubar even when on the VPN connection.
But then again any connection to outside China is dodgy due to the GFWC.

 

[Cali_PH]

No problem, glad some of it helped! I've done a ton of research for that area over the past year, plus I travel a lot for work & pleasure, so I'm glad all that effort helps others too.

A friend and I will be in the Zion/Bryce area around 10/15-10/16, so maybe we'll spot you. At 6'4" you should stand out.

BTW, emailed you again. I sent a PDF you may find useful. Just wanted to give you a head's up, it's not a virus or anything.