USA: The Southwest, from Denver to Los Angeles.

As regular wild campers in the Alps, this first park makes us realise just how complicated multi-day hiking in American national parks can be! Here, there is no backcountry camping without a permit... and permits are not easy to get. The best campsites are booked through an online platform months in advance, and often only the less popular ones remain, which have to be reserved in person at the ranger station on the day itself. So there is not much room for improvisation or spontaneity... It takes away a little of the charm, but we follow the rules, which are ultimately a good thing for nature.

After the first kilometre of hiking, there is already almost no one around... Most visitors park at the car park and ultimately walk very little, so the trails are actually very quiet. In total, we complete a 46-kilometre loop with two nights of wild camping, the first beside a beautiful alpine lake, Odessa Lake. The loop takes us through very varied scenery: first vast pine forests dotted with beautiful alpine lakes, then, on the second day, higher and rockier terrain. The immense granite walls in this part of the Rockies are impressive, and once again it is difficult to convey the sheer scale of these landscapes in photographs.

In the end, we stay only very briefly in Arches National Park. Barely a day, which is not much for such a vast park. We usually like to hike and take the time to get away from the most obvious routes, but this time our visit is fairly conventional: the Arches Scenic Drive, stops at the main viewpoints and only a few short walks. It is extremely hot, around 35 to 40°C, and the conditions do not exactly make us want to hike for hours. Even so, over the course of the day we discover several of the park's iconic areas: Double Arch, Petrified Dune Viewpoint, the viewpoint over Fiery Furnace, then the road to the far end of the park.

We therefore follow the Valley Drive by car, stopping regularly near the mesas to take photographs. It is a little frustrating not to be able to walk farther, especially in a place like this. The visit quickly feels very structured: you follow the track, stop whenever you want, take photographs, then set off again. Despite that, we really love the place. The mesas are impressive rock formations, the colours in the rock are magnificent, and the late afternoon light, with a storm in the distance, makes the landscape even more beautiful.

The next morning, we continued towards Grand Canyon National Park. The drive was long, so we stopped at Horseshoe Bend near Page. It is another very popular site, reached by a short walk from the car park, with crowds gathering above the famous bend of the Colorado River. In the intense heat, that short walk was more than enough. We took the classic photograph like everyone else, but we were still glad to have seen it before continuing to the Grand Canyon.

Once there, we first went to the Grand Canyon Lodge, the large historic building standing on the edge of the canyon. From there, we took a short walk along the Bright Angel Point Trail, which quickly reaches several viewpoints. At first it rained a little, then the sky eventually cleared. The landscape finally opened up in front of us, with the canyon stretching as far as the eye could see.

Even when you see only a small part of it, the Grand Canyon is immediately impressive. It is immense, difficult to grasp and almost impossible to compare with anything else. The park's reputation makes perfect sense once you are standing before this vast expanse. We did not do a long hike that day: in August, the heat inside the canyon is not really suited to that kind of plan, and in any case we did not have a permit to sleep in the park.

The next morning, before continuing to Bryce Canyon National Park, we drove Cape Royal Road, one of the North Rim's scenic roads. We stopped at several viewpoints, including Point Imperial, Vista Encantada, Roosevelt Point, Walhalla Overlook, Angel's Window and Cape Royal. It was warmer than the day before, but the landscapes were still truly beautiful. Despite spending two days there, we left with a slight sense of unfinished business. The Grand Canyon is one of those parks we would like to return to, probably in another season, so that we could walk farther without the very high summer temperatures.

The next morning, for our first full day there, we set out on the Peekaboo Loop, a roughly 10-kilometre trail that we really enjoyed. It gives an excellent overview of Bryce Canyon when time is limited: the trail descends into the amphitheatre, passes among the hoodoos, and the viewpoints follow one after another, giving a real sense of heading deeper into the park. We were also surprised not to find that many people there. Because Bryce Canyon is at altitude, it is much cooler than the other parks on the trip, which makes the hike especially pleasant.

At the end of the day, we returned to Sunrise Point and Sunset Point to take a few photographs from the edge of the amphitheatre. That evening, we slept in a hotel in Tropic. It was one of the few nights of the trip that we spent outside our tent, but these breaks also did us good: they gave us a chance to wash a few things and rest a little more comfortably.

That evening, we went to sleep near Red Canyon in Dixie National Forest. It is a beautiful alternative to Bryce Canyon: the landscapes are very similar to those in the park, with hoodoos and red rock, but without the same national park restrictions. We could therefore pitch the tent in a magnificent setting, almost among the formations themselves. We spent a beautiful evening and a really enjoyable night there before continuing towards Zion National Park the next day.

We were lucky because we had obtained a permit for Angels Landing the day before arriving. It is one of the park's most sought-after hikes, with a lottery system controlling access to the final section. The walk is not very long, but it is steep, exposed in places and well equipped. We climbed to the viewpoint at the very top before descending to continue our day.

The following day, we returned along the same trail to the starting point, then took the shuttle to hike part of The Narrows. It is a rather unusual hike where you walk directly through the water at the bottom of the canyon, using a kind of pilgrim's staff. We did not have time to go very far, so we spent only two or three hours there. But even over a short section, the experience was very different from the rest of the trip.

We would have liked to do a longer version of The Narrows, or even camp along the river, but our schedule was too tight. After this final walk in Zion, we took the shuttle back, collected the car and left the park to begin the drive to Los Angeles. From Zion, around 700 kilometres remained to the California coast: almost a full day on the road, which truly marked the end of the national park part of the journey.

The rest of the drive ultimately made a stronger impression on us than Las Vegas. We crossed vast desert landscapes, with endless straight roads and a horizon that never seemed to get any closer. It is the kind of image we have all seen in films, but that you only really understand after spending hours driving through that immensity.

We had considered making a detour through Death Valley National Park, but our schedule was too tight. That will have to wait for another time. As we continued into California, the landscape changed again with the first Joshua trees, typical of the Mojave Desert. We also made a quick stop at Calico Ghost Town, a former mining village that has become very touristy and is a bit of a tourist trap, but is still nice to see along the way.

The day ended in Los Angeles, where we spent two days before returning to France. We quickly discovered Santa Monica, Malibu, Hollywood and Hollywood Boulevard without spending too long there: after two weeks in wide-open spaces, the city naturally appealed to us a little less. This was where our road trip ended, after crossing an immense part of the American West.