I was told that finding somewhere to camp at busy Bryce Canyon may be a problem, so we set off down a very long gravel road into the wild, mountain lion habitat…
And were rewarded by beautiful little Pine Lake campground…
No mountain lions seen but a commotion nearby in the night seemed to indicate the presence of one nearby…things like that focus the mind somewhat, a beautiful place though
Bryce Canyon is yet another American natural wonder that boggles the mind. Â It is absolutely stunning and we’re so lucky to have visited. Â It was one of our favourite places and I really hope I get to go back someday.
Navajo National Monument in Northern Arizona is a place I visited years ago and inspired my song “Navajo Wind” on my album “Heading West”. Â It is a remote and incredibly quiet place, where the remains of the Anasazi (“Ancient Ones”) cliff dwellings are preserved by the Navajo Nation tribe. Â Nobody knows for sure why these people left or where they went, but when you gaze out across the valley at their homes in the rock and the surrounding desolate landscape you can only imagine what their lives must have been like.
 
Or at least that is how this particular woodland feels. Â Nestled on the crags and ledges of a remote North Wales valley but quite close to the sea, a walk, or scramble, through this wood takes you into a different world that works on a different timescale to the rest of us.
Centuries of timber harvesting, grazing by upland sheep and feral goats, and mining for manganese have shaped this wood. Â Boulders are covered in carpets of mosses, liverworts, lichens and ferns because this is essentially the temperate rainforest, with high humidity and (relative) warmth and grazing by the wild goats has kept the under-story open, which the lichens and mosses love.
This is how we’re trying to keep the wild goats out. Â If we don’t they’ll eat and strip all of the saplings and young trees, and the woodland will never regenerate. Â But they still manage to get in…
And the remains of past lives can be seen in the wood. Â Sheep pens, boundary walls and mine entrances…
Spring is temporarily postponed on the Pembrokeshire coast
Mike Howe 