Does a canyon get more grand than this?

Saturday, 11 July, 2015

Well, first with the expectations, then the reality.  I've never been to the Grand Canyon, so I was expecting a gigantic hole in the ground, with a path along the edge to go down into the canyon, a railing along the edge that you walk up to and say "wow!", look a bit, then take your photos.  We went to the Northern Rim that we had heard was better since we weren't camping or riding down to the bottom.   On the North Rim, I didn't see any path leading into the canyon.  There was a nice lodge with cabins and many hiking trails with visions of the canyon, but no paths down into it.  Then, while it is a really big hole in the ground, it is very long, but there are many rock formations in the middle of it too--I expected the river and a fairly flat valley.  Also, as we drove to the Grand Canyon and hiked, it was full of many trees--mostly pine, with aspen and oak  mixed in with the arid (desert-like) plants.  Very pretty, but I just wasn't expecting that!

Now that the children are older, we can hike at our own pace on some of the hiking paths where we are taking a lot of photos.  Quite often we walk together or in pairs or groups, but if one person wants to sit and contemplate the view or try to take fancy photos, the others can go on.  We couldn't do that when the children were younger--we all had to wait until everyone was ready and had to stay together (and hold onto the waist of the children's pants when they tried to go out too far).  

First, we went to Bright Angel Point--the main go-to viewing place, including the lodge and visitor's center.  We hiked out to the Point, then on the Kaibab Trail.  Nice trails--some flat parts with only moderately steep hills and lots of trees.  (I like the trees).

Bright Angel Point trail

Kaibab Trail

If you look carefully, there's a bee pollinating this woodland flower

Selfie

Shelby, the tree-hugger

We watched a PBS (public television) special once on old-time lodges in the national parks.  They were mostly built in the 20s and are beautiful.  This one was no exception.  While not as grand as others (such as the Old Faithful Lodge in Yellowstone), it was bigger than life and made you want to stay there!  When you stay there, they don't have rooms in the main lodge building.  The main lodge has several restaurants, check-in, a post office, gift shop, area with a stage, lounges, and big porches looking over the canyon.  There are two types of cabins.  Cute ones with little front porches and rocking chairs and more plain ones.  As we were walking past the more posh ones, I saw a room service cart in front of one and decided to take a peek.  The man preparing the room looked surprised to see me, so I explained that I just wanted to take a peek.  He was so cute!!  He went into full showmanship mode, giving me a "tour" and talking about how nice it is--he even turned on the gas fireplace for me!  It had a main room with desk and two double beds, then a little hallway with a bathroom and what he called a "ladies room" (!)  which had a vanity, iron/ironing board, and a little fridge.  And a small table to two chairs in front of the fireplace in the main room.  As well as the rocking chairs on the porch and the porch of this one looked out over the grand canyon!  There was also a door that led into the adjoining unit that the man said could be used by the couple for the children if they wanted some privacy from them for a night--there were even some bunk beds in the other one.

The main dining hall

reception

A light fixture in the lounge

Main entrance to the lodge 

One of the lounges

A cabin (note the cute rocking chairs on the porch)

After that, we had our lunch (we bought more fruit and granola bars from the Safeway across the street after our hotel breakfast) overlooking the canyon, then drove half an hour to the Cape Royal trail.  This trail was paved (the others were dirt covered with pine needles), which was weird, but we saw more of the eastern arm of the canyon.  The North rim is taller that the South Rim and because of the snow and weather, the slope is more gradual.  When the snowfall melts and when rain falls, it flows down into the canyon, When there is rain on the South Rim, it flows to the south as well, but that is out of the canyon so there is less erosion and the sides are steeper.  (That was your geology lesson for today!).

After hiking at Cape Royal, we headed back toward Page, but stopped at Horseshoe Canyon just outside of Page to see the sunset (evidently it's a cool thing).  This canyon (again carved by the Colorado River just like the Grand Canyon) has a 270 degree turn in it, which is cool to see.  At the top of the canyon, watching the sunset, though was a strong wind blowing sand which wasn't so cool. Pretty sunset.  We saw one guy with the most techie tripod ever--it had a gauge for figuring out angles (like a surveyor uses) and had buttons you pushed to adjust it with it's motor.  Randy had some tripod envy going on!

From Cape Royal Trail

Angel Window

Horseshoe Canyon, near Page

Then back into town for a late fast-food dinner before going back to the hotel to shower off the sand which was all over our skin, in our sandals, and Randy even found some in his pockets.