AMANGIRI RESORT
The first thing you notice when you step off the small twin-prop airplane in Page, Arizona, is the power plant. Its three smokestacks piercing the vibrant blue sky, the coal-burner sits in otherworldly contrast to the surrounding red desert. Still, it keeps its distance, and after a few days, it becomes just as much a part of the Four Corners landscape as the carved cliffs and endless horizons. Recently, the landscape has gotten a new, beautiful resident, in the form of the Amangiri, the latest luxury hotel from Aman Resorts (a chain of stunning properties scattered across the most beautiful spots in the world) and the second in the United States after a rough-hewn stone lodge in Jackson Hole. As in the other locations, the design is impeccable, the service is outstanding, and the atmosphere—especially in the late winter low season—is unnervingly relaxing. The resort is renowned for its spa services, but they seem almost unnecessary when the crisp desert air itself serves as a decompressor. Until the Amangiri opened just across the border in Utah last autumn, the area, despite its intense natural beauty, was rather short on luxury options, both for dining and accommodation. A drive through Page leads past a Holiday Inn, a Travelodge, and a Super 8 Motel, but within minutes, the town is past and the calm shores of Lake Powell, dotted in houseboats all year long, come into view. Highway 89 passes along high above the water and across the Colorado River on its way north, but it’s not until you turn onto the dirt road leading directly to the Amangiri—just a few minutes past the sign still touting Utah as the home of the 2002 Olympics—that the scenery becomes really breathtaking. Situated in a patch of desert so unknowable and alien that Disney Studios is using the area as a stand-in for Mars, it feels like a spot that is out of both time and place. The infinite desert seems all-encompassing, the perfect escape from anything you need to put aside.