My Cambridge friend and skiing buddy Rob relocated to Flagstaff, Arizona, after we completed our PhDs. After seeing endless incredible photos of his state-side adventures online, I decided it was time to hop on a flight to Phoenix. As I still haven’t entirely moved on from my 8 years of student budgeting, I ended up on a flight with a short stop in LA. I am a big fan of people watching, and LA airport does not disappoint. I was especially bemused to find myself mere inches away from some ginormous butt implants.

Flagstaff is at 2,106m and the atmosphere is incredibly dry. I found myself drinking water by the gallon. I spent the first morning catching up with sleep and getting over jetlag while Rob went to work. Then the adventures began. We started with a gentle stroll around the beautiful neighbourhood. This was a perfect warm up for our plans the next day. For some crazy reason I had agreed to do the Kahtoola uphill race, which is basically a running race UP a ski slope. I did the shortest distance and was totally psyched out by some girls at the start line, who told me that they had been practicing for weeks, the altitude would affect me and that it would involve over an hour of uphill running. I gave it a good go anyway, although I stopped to admire the view and take a few photos at the top. Afterwards I was amazed to discover that I had finished 5th. Brilliantly I had carried Kate’s (Robs sister) chip around in my backpack as she was full of flu, and she managed to finish in 6th place…. The boys did the crazy long race, skinning all the way up the mountain and skiing down. Lots of ultrarunners compete in this, but Rob smashed it. Afterwards we went to a party and had some well earned beers.

The next day we were up early to drive to Colorado for a few days of skiing in Purgatory. We were so incredibly lucky to get a fresh dump of powder, have clear blue skies and sunshine, and pretty much get the slopes to ourselves. We also managed to sample pretty much every microbrewery in town and fit in plenty of hot-tubbing too.

We then headed back to Flagstaff to explore the town a bit more. We went to an old volcanic crater and hiked around a bit. In the evening we went to a Matisyahu gig. This is probably one of the weirdest things I have ever experienced. The guy is a Jewish Reggae artist and it started off brilliantly. Then he got as high as a kite at the interval and the whole thing went off-piste! At least the beers were good.

The next morning we were up early again for some mountain biking in Sedona. The town is full of New Age shops and crystal energy hot spots – an interesting place for two scientists! The countryside is amazingly beautiful though. We spent hours biking though the desert trails in 30 degree heat. It got quite hardcore at a few points and ended with us carrying bikes up huge hills. We definitely needed the beers from the cool box at the end.

After returning my bike we set off into the desert for some wild camping. We tested Robs jeep to the absolute limit with our off-roading adventure. Eventually we escaped the RVs with their huge satellite dishes, without causing any lasting damage to the jeep, and found our spot for the night just as the sun was setting. The desert gets very cold very fast at night, so while Rob was pitching the tent I got a fire going (I’m quite proud of those skills). We then made toasted sandwiches and smores over the fire before cracking open a bottle of champagne and looking at the crystal clear views of the Milky Way- the  perfect end to the perfect day.

The next morning we were packed up and ready to go bright and early. We had just enough time to fit in a hike into the Grand Canyon. I had been told it was definitely worth a visit but I wasn’t prepared for how vast and breath taking it is. We found a quieter path than the main tourist route and trekked quite a long was down. The climb back up was intense but totally worth it. We took the obligatory ‘on the edge’ photos and passed several tourists who were definitely not going to be getting back out before nightfall. We then returned to Flagstaff to make bacon sandwiches and more smores with Kate.

Flights to Phoenix = £550. Tickets to the worlds weirdest gig = £10. A 10 day action packed holiday with a running race, skiing, mountain biking, hiking, wild camping, hot tubbing, endless craft beers and the worlds best bacon sandwich. Priceless.