The Grand Canyon: A taste of the Wild West

Heli USA has created Grand Canyon Ranch, giving guests a slice of the Wild West life along with spectacular aerial views of Las Vegas surrounds. Photo / Supplied

Goodness knows what the French and British tourists thought of sitting around a roaring campfire singing Wheels on the Bus go Round and Round. But my four-year-old was pretty impressed.

The six-year-old was even more impressed when our charming guitar-playing host, Casey Adams, happily took a request for Jingle Bell Rock. He loudly sang along.

I feared my sons were getting high on marshmallows, having already toasted almost an entire packet of them.

It was yet another surreal moment in a week of surreal moments, but after the extraordinary escapism of Las Vegas, we all agreed that our night staying at the Grand Canyon Ranch was a welcome reminder of the splendour of nature at her most naked.

The ranch is only a half-hour flight by helicopter from Las Vegas but, as the cliche goes, it might as well have been to another planet.

Heli USA acquired the ranch only after a dispute with the local Indian tribe prevented it from landing its choppers at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. But the purchase was a masterstroke. The ranch is nestled in the middle of some of the most impressive scenery I've ever seen.

Spirit Mountain, which looms over the ranch, looks as if it has been specifically created for a Western movie. The ranch can, in fact, trace its history back to the time of the Mormon Trail, when a missionary couple discovered its natural springs and decided to call it home.

Its current owners have done a fantastic job of turning it into a fairly unique tourist experience, including a mock Wild West gunfight that was almost disturbingly real, a sunset horse ride through the Joshua-tree-studded hills (complete with a glass of bubbly atop a particularly scenic ridge), and an opportunity to pan for gold.

After a hearty dinner in a ranchhouse decked with fairy lights, there was the campfire singalong, with the talented Adams. The guy can really sing- he has recorded his own albums - and has a wonderful rapport with kids.

But he's not only good at the kids' stuff. His versions of Johnny Cash, Elvis, Bob Dylan and John Denver songs impressed even me, and I'm not normally a big country music fan.

Even better, I got to drift off to sleep as he sang softly nearby, when the kids finally curled up by the fire and had to be carried off to bed.

Sleeping quarters were a choice between a genuine teepee or a rather more luxurious cabin. The kids were naturally keen on the teepee, but - slightly to my relief, I must admit - they sleep only two, so we chose the cabin instead.

I had previously chatted with one of the owners of the business, John Power, who turned out to be a Brit and who was originally raised in a terrace house somewhere in the south of England.

He had somehow got into sailing, and got a job as a sailing instructor in Greece. From there it wasn't too big a stretch, I guess, to becoming a skiing instructor in Europe. But I never quite got to the bottom of how he ended up in the helicopter business in America.

And the helicopter trip, after all, was meant to be the highlight of the entire adventure.

Unfortunately, I suffer from chronic motion sickness, so what was actually a fairly short trip (although not by helicopter standards) felt rather long. But I wasn't so unwell that I couldn't appreciate the awesome wonder of the Grand Canyon.

The tour also took in the Hoover Dam, which is an impressive man-made wonder. And we also got to peer down at one of Celine Dion's many houses, which is probably also a wonder in its own right.

I'm embarrassed to admit that my younger son fell asleep in the back seat of the helicopter - a handy habit he still hasn't grown out of whenever we travel long distances in the car. But my fears that the six-year-old might find the experience a little scary proved unfounded.

Having no idea how lucky he was, he now demands to be ferried almost everywhere by helicopter.

The next morning, we were taken back to the local airstrip in a covered wagon and whisked back to Vegas by helicopter again. This time, we hovered and swooped over the central city as well, enabling us to get an eagle's eye view of this odd oasis in the middle of the Mojave Desert.

I happily forked out US$60 (NZ$100) for a DVD of the experience, which includes footage of our family boarding our big blue chopper, and previously shot footage of the Grand Canyon, and Las Vegas by night.

In truth, I thought the price was outrageous. But Heli USA had been fantastic hosts, and this was not a cheap tour. Such memories, as they say, are priceless.