The Grand Canyon!

Hello! We've been SO busy! After Sedona, we drove to the Grand Canyon. We spent some time in Grand Canyon village and took advantage of the facilities (showers, library, laundry, post office, etc.) and soaked in the environment. In the first few days we were there we rode the shuttle around the south side of the rim and saw all the incredible vistas, found some dispersed camping spots to set up in right outside the park, and prepared for our planned descend into the bottom.

The morning of the 9^th we woke up at 2:30 a.m., made some breakfast and hit the road. We started our hike on the South Kaibab trail down into the Grand Canyon at 4 a.m. with our headlamps trying to beat the heat. The hike to the Colorado River was about seven miles and steep!! We crossed a suspension bridge toward the bottom and made it to the canyon floor in a few hours. The river water was frigid but we dipped our feet in. We continued on a few more miles to Bright Angel Campgrounds, a site at  the base of the trail we would take back out to the rim. We stayed for an hour or so and rested in a creek, and walked through the site to Phantom Ranch, where they have a ranger station, cabins, and a cafeteria at the base of the canyon. Of course we weren’t staying in cabins! We still had a climb to get up to our campsite. 

Indian Gardens is an oasis a few miles up the canyon wall and where we had our permit to stay the night. By the time we got there we were exhausted… and apparently not alone. We arrived at the campsite and saw sleeping hikers everywhere recovering from their early hikes. We joined them and it felt great. After our nap we explored around a bit. The garden was a pocket of trees in the dry desert canyon. We met some of our neighbors and played cards with them. They were from Michigan, they were dutch, and they were competitive! They taught us to play euchre and we had a lot of fun. We even beat them a few times, much to their dismay (maybe beginners' luck, but we'll take it).

That evening we hiked out to a plateau to watch the sunset. The viewpoint was phenomenal. After the sun set we watched little wild mice run around us on the rocks, which were oddly comfortable with us being there. I guess at this point they are probably pretty used to people around them. The hike back just after sunset was awesome, we could see the silhouette of the canyon around us and not much else.

The next day we stayed in camp until afternoon, we had about five miles left to hike to make it back to the rim and wanted to wait until we were guaranteed some shade on the trail.  We hiked out on the Bright Angel Trail which was pretty much uphill the entire way from our campsite to the end. After lots of switchbacks and a few hours we made it back to the top. We jumped on a shuttle bus and convinced the driver to take us right to our car even though it was parked about a mile away from his usual stop. We thanked him, made a late night breakfast and went straight to bed feeling tired and accomplished.

We spent another day in the Canyon recouping after our hike before we continued en route.What an incredible place!

Heading down the South Kaibab Trail

Fun with the sunrise

Just clearing the path. Ha.

The Colorado River looks so small from the rim!

Suspension bridges at the bottom of the canyon

Looking back down on our way out. The green area in the middle is Indian Gardens.

Up, up, up.

Now some fun in the sunset!

We made it to the bottom! This is the Colorado River, not so small after all.

We saw SO many animals. This pigeon came right up to Nate and there were lizards, elk, mice, and lots of squirrels with us in the campground. One squirrel even nibbled on my toe while sitting at a table!

 

Sunset at the plateau

A little close for comfort.. Especially once he took interest in us.