Splendidly colored and fantastically shaped, the red rocks of the American Southwest dominate this 51-minute tape as they do the Four Corners area. Narrator Roy Conrad begins at the beginning, with the Earth's formation, and then lands viewers in modern-day Sedona, Arizona, to start the tour, aided by a series of unidentified tourists, park rangers, and apparent experts. Each area is identified by map and then visited by the camera, with considerable time spent at the enormous artificial Lake Powell, created by the building of the Glen Canyon Dam. Next stop is Utah's Canyonlands, and Zion and Bryce National Parks, the latter known for its "hoodoos"--humanlike figures of pink rock. In a remote pocket on the floor of the Grand Canyon, viewers meet a Native American tribe who operate a lodge and campground. In contrast, Colorado's Mesa Verde offers stunning remains of the cliffside apartments that supported more than 400 Anasazi people before they mysteriously vanished. Viewers get a look at some of the 15,000 petroglyphs decorating rocks within the Albuquerque city limits, and then it's back to Sedona for spiritual quests. It's a whirlwind tour that will leave armchair travelers wanting to see more. --Kimberly Heinrichs |
