Hi, I'm Meng.
Canyon Notes is where I write up my trips to the American Southwest — mostly the Grand Canyon, Zion, and the country around Page, Arizona.
I am not a guide, a photographer, or a full-time traveller. I am someone who took one road trip through northern Arizona a few years ago, stood at the rim of the Grand Canyon at sunrise, and has been finding excuses to go back ever since. Two or three trips a year, always by car, always with more water in the trunk than seems reasonable.
What you will find here: honest trail notes, the mistakes included — the permit I forgot, the trailhead I reached three hours too late, the "easy" hike that was not. What you will not find: sponsored posts, affiliate links, or itineraries copied from anywhere else. If a place disappointed me, I say so; if a viewpoint is worth a 5 a.m. alarm, I say that too.
How I travel
Slowly, where possible. I would rather spend three nights in one town than tick off five parks in five days. I hike early, nap through the worst of the afternoon heat, and believe a canyon looks its best in the twenty minutes after sunrise and the twenty before sunset. Everything on this site was visited in person, in the month stated on the post.
Photo credits
Unless a post says otherwise, the photographs on this site come from Wikimedia Commons, and I am grateful to the photographers who share their work so generously:
- Homepage hero — “Sunrise from Grand Canyon Village” by Grand Canyon National Park Service, public domain.
- Grand Canyon at Hopi Point — photograph by Tuxyso, CC BY-SA 3.0.
- Powell Point evening light — photograph by Tuxyso, CC BY-SA 3.0.
- South Kaibab Trail hikers — Grand Canyon National Park Service, public domain.
- Antelope Canyon (main) — photograph by Lucas Löffler, public domain.
- Lower Antelope Canyon — photograph uploaded by Meckimac, CC BY-SA 3.0.
- Upper Antelope Canyon — photograph by Tuxyso, CC BY-SA 3.0.
- The Narrows, Zion — photograph by Trougnouf, CC BY 4.0.
- Zion Canyon from the trail — photograph by Diliff, CC BY-SA 3.0.
- Angels Landing — photograph by Tobias Alt, CC BY-SA 4.0.
- Horseshoe Bend (main) — photograph by Charles Wang, CC BY-SA 4.0.
- Horseshoe Bend at midday — photograph by Thomas Wolf, CC BY-SA 3.0.
- Horseshoe Bend in low sun — photograph by Dllu, CC BY-SA 4.0.
- Bryce Canyon amphitheatre — photograph by Jon Zander, CC BY-SA 3.0.
- Sunrise Point, Bryce — photograph by King of Hearts, CC BY-SA 4.0.
- Hoodoos at close range — photograph by Michael Gäbler, CC BY 3.0.
The text is all mine. Errors in trail distances are also mine — check current conditions with the National Park Service before you go; canyon country changes fast.