Blue skies, red rocks and golfing greens are the essential colours of Southern Utah - but if you want to catch them at their best you have to get up early, as Anne Kostalas discovers.

"WAS it really that colour?" is the question everyone asks when they see your holiday snaps from Utah's red rock canyons - and with good reason. The colours are unbelievable - even when you're there.

This is possibly why so many film makers chose this area as a backdrop. Thelma and Louise, Mission Impossible 2, The Greatest Story Ever Told and Back to the Future were all filmed in the area. Every year three million people visit the strange rock formations of the five National Parks in Southern Utah - Arches, Zion, Canyonlands, Capitol Reef and Bryce Canyon. Not forgetting the breathtaking state park - Dead Horse Point - so named as coralled horses died of thirst stranded on a plateau here, within sight of the Colorado river below.

The light early in the morning is enough to get even the laziest person out of bed. But if you miss it, there's always sunset.

I hiked the 45 minutes to Delicate Arch in Arches National Park and joined dozens of photographers all sitting, waiting to capture the dying moments of the sun on the arch. We were well rewarded for our walk.

There are 2,000 naturally formed arches here. Each year some collapse and others are created due to the effects of extreme temperatures, ice and salt. It is possible to drive around the red rock parks but getting out of your car and hiking is a far better option. Trails range in difficulty and distance.

At Zion National Park just a 30 minute hike will get you to Weeping Rock - a spectacular lookout point. Springdale - a sweet little tree-lined town - is the ideal base for exploring Zion.

Getting onto a trail couldn't be easier. There is a free shuttle to the park entrance and another will take you to each of the 17 trails. After starting off with an easy one, I chose Hidden Canyon next - a three hour hike. It's impossible to lose your way as the trail is so clearly marked - it even has chains and a handrail carved into the rock on the more steeply sloping sections. Breathtaking scenery awaits you around every turn.

Admiring the view at one point, I heard the surprising far-off strains of someone playing a flute.

The red rocks are such a great backdrop, it's not surprising that there is a growth in get-away-from-it-all hotels. My favourite was the Red Cliffs Lodge - a recently converted ranch near Moab. I arrived at night, exhausted from hiking, and found it in the middle of nowhere on a mountain road.

At dinner, outside on the balcony, there were gasps from other diners as a red moon rose over the river between the mountains. Too tired to fetch my camera I stumbled into bed and awoke to find I'd been sleeping in the shadow of a red mountain - with the river flowing past my door, a magical setting which was used for the first Marlboro man advertisements. At the entrance to the hotel, there's a little fenced-off hill where the ranchers, who once worked this land, lie buried.

Red Mountain Spa in St George claims to be America's second largest destination spa resort. They offer "active relaxation", and boast that 40 per cent of their clientele is male - which has got to be unusual. I don't know how many men go for the Desert Rose Facial or the Mother Earth Wrap but there are plenty of macho pursuits too, from mountain biking to kayaking.

I tried the hot rock massage to ease my aching limbs - a strangely soothing experience involving local juniper oil and smooth, flat stones which are heated up and placed on a towel on your back.

Driving across the pink dry landscape of Southern Utah, it's a shock to see sudden flashes of green. Greens to be exact. No wonder they tell you to conserve water in the hotel rooms round here. It's needed for the golfers.

I met Dave Terry, St George's golf director, at the Sunbrook Golf Course. This one course alone needs a million gallons of water a day to keep the fairways looking good.

Utah is Golf Heaven. A perfect climate means there are more holes per capita in Southern Utah than most places you'd care to name. Eleven courses lie within a 15 minute drive of each other, with 800,000 rounds of golf played here every year.

You won't find a golfer on the trails though. Dave says they are more likely to drive into Las Vegas for their fun. "Golfing by day and gambling by night" is the perfect holiday for many, he says.

I spent my spare time catching up on some reading at the appropriately named Novel House Inn B&B in Springdale. Each of the bedrooms is decorated in the style of different writers. I stayed in the CS Lewis room and sure enough, there was a lion on top of the wardrobe. A great breakfast awaits you next morning - announced with the ringing of a ship's bell by your host Norma Clay.

At Calf Canyon B&B in the tiny town of Bluff there were beautiful big rooms with antique furniture and Chilli Relenos for breakfast (from owner Sarah Hayduk's garden) and tea from a silver teapot - a decent cup of tea is hard to find in the States.

Just a few doors down lives Vaughn Hadenfeldt from Far Out Expeditions, who offers guided tours of another of the area's attractions - rock art dating back a thousand years. Vaughn took me to see the very impressive Wolf man site in Butler Wash and says part of the fun is guessing what the petroglyphs and pictographs mean.

"They didn't leave us a dictionary and they didn't have a written language. That's what intrigues a lot of people who come to the region. They can come up with their own theories." He explains his and shows me pictures of a waterbird, a human scalp, a flute player and finally a couple making love. Standing in the heat - slightly out of breath from the walk - these amazingly clear images are definitely worth the hike.

Cowboys at the turn of the century thought so too - they used the art as target practice from the other side of the wash. Bullet holes pepper the rock.

If you have time, a drive South to Monument Valley, which straddles Utah and Arizona, is well worth it. You'll immediately recognise the strange skyline from a million movies. As I drove away, I couldn't keep my eyes off my rear view mirror. Eventually I stopped the car and took another picture. I was really sorry to see the view fade away in the distance.

That's how you feel about the red rock canyons of Utah - you just don't want to leave them