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Published: July 28th 2009
The Grand Canyon - 42°c
When my alarm clock went off this morning at 7:50am, I didn’t hesitate in getting up straight away, so excited about today’s planned activities! Once showered and dressed I left the lodge room and headed down to breakfast with some of the group before we headed for the coach around 9am.
It was a short 30-minute coach ride out to the Grand Canyon airport where we were ‘checked in’ and weighed (for even helicopter weight distribution apparently) and handed over our tickets for our helicopter flights. From there we had to watch a 15-minute safety video about what to do in the event of an emergency landing. It was rather complicated and god knows how I’d remember all of that if our helicopter were plummeting towards the ground! As it finished, I hoped that somebody else took more in than I did!
We got sorted out into groups for the helicopters. I was put with Marnee, Lauren, Joey, Carissa and Sam, which was cool because we all get on so well. Once we were allocated our seat positions, we were taken out to the helicopters. It was SO noisy outside and very breezy with the wind coming off of the helicopter propellers. We got shown to our helicopter seats according to the positions on our tickets (based on the aforementioned weight distribution guidelines) and were helped to buckle up and put on the noise-reducing headphones. It was so cool and with the microphones attached to the headphones, we all looked like pilots!
Before we knew it, we were off the ground and starting to ascend into the blue sky! It was SO exciting, more exciting than I’ll be able to convey here, despite what will be my best efforts!
Despite being a bit nervous being in a helicopter for the first time, it wasn’t scary at all, and was in fact quite possibly the best thing I’ve ever done in my entire life! Even Lauren, who admitted to being very nervous, was staring out the window at every opportunity and smiling from ear to ear.
We headed over an incredibly big forest before we reached the canyon edge and over it! And there it was, the Grand Canyon! About 8,000 feet from the bottom, 2,000 feet above the top and getting the same view as the birds that soar high above the canyon! To say it was an awesome view would be an understatement of the greatest kind. With specially selected rousing music blasting through the headphones alongside the pilot’s commentary every now and again, a clear blue sky and scorching sun above the canyon and beautiful natural colours of the rock formations below, it was an overwhelming sight and on many occasions I found myself with goose bumps all over!
We all took photos of one another with the canyon as our backgrounds, squeezing together for group shots, and then countless numbers of photos of the canyon itself too. There was a small window open either side of the helicopter where we were able to reach out with our cameras and take some photos from outside the helicopter. I had to hold on tight to my camera though, as the breeze and suction outside the helicopter was so strong, but it was worth it as the photos have come out amazingly well.
Our flight lasted 30 minutes, and it seemed over far too soon. For those 30 minutes it felt like a dream being high above the canyon like that, a place I’ve dreamed of being for so many, many years now. And it was only once we landed that it felt real, and I was left with the thought “did I just see that?!”. We each had the time of our lives, and it was definitely something that will stay with me for a lifetime. Not to sound too cliché, but while I was up there I felt so insignificant and unimportant, and the world felt just that little bit larger. - A bizarre feeling that felt exceptionally comforting, and put so very much in perspective in terms of all of the issues and troubles of the recent past, providing definite food for thought for many months to come, of that I’m sure.
We had a group photo taken in front of the helicopter that we each bought a copy of in a special Grand Canyon wallet, which in the months to come will hopefully act as another reminder of such an amazing and soul-touching occasion.
Once back on the coach, we headed back to the hotel via the ‘Grand Canyon’ sign where we all bundled around and had our tour guide Kristina take some photos of us all. After getting back to the hotel, several of us each freshened up and headed out 30 minutes later back to the Grand Canyon south rim, where we embarked on a trek down into the canyon called the ‘Bright Angel trail’. After getting a bus out to the hike starting point, we split up into groups and started our way down into the canyon. It was a rough hike down not least because of the heat in the canyon. It definitely got hotter the further down into the canyon we got, and the ground was steep, slightly slippery because of the sand (erosion from the canyon rocks over time), tight and windy. It became further difficult whenever we had to pass people on the way back up, and also the Grand Canyon mules with people in their backs. These mules were so cute, and we each said how sorry we felt for them. It was steep and hot for just us trekking in the canyon, let alone those poor animals with people on their backs and hiking equipment hanging over their sides. Although later on in the day we did pass the mule sanctuary where they’re all kept later in the day and overnight, and we saw them feeding and what appeared to be chilling out (if mules do chill out of course!) and they seemed happy.
We made several stops on the way down into the canyon to stand in some shade to try to cool down, sip some water from our bottles, top up our sunscreen and chat to several people on the way up. It took nearly an hour and a half to get down to the first checkpoint down in the canyon, which meant we’d walked 1.9km (just over a mile) and were down 1,146ft from the top. We stopped off for around 20 minutes or so at the sheltered hut down there to fill up our water bottles from the water fountains down there, take a few photos as proof of our feat, before heading back out into the blazing sunshine.
Surprisingly enough, it actually seemed slightly easier hiking back up. Although it was steep, it didn’t feel as though my shoes were slipping on the sand anywhere near as much as they were on the way down, the only issue coming back up was getting out of breath so much, for which we of course stopped for a while each time it became too much. As the afternoon had progressed, the heat had increased big time on the way back up, and along with several of the guys, I took my top off because I was just far too hot.
We made it up in 60 minutes flat, which everyone agreed was really impressive especially since it had actually taken longer to get down! Lauren and I were slightly behind the others (Nathan, James and Brooke) who were a few minutes in front of us. I think Lauren and I were, shall we say, the ‘least fittest’! But that was cool, as we weren’t in a hurry and it was better to make it back up safely and healthily rather than push ourselves too much and regret it.
Once we got back to the top, the free shuttle bus back to our lodge was literally just pulling in, so we jumped aboard straight away. Everyone dispersed back to their rooms for a while to freshen up and chill out for a couple of hours once we arrived back at the lodge, and got ready to meet up again around 6pm for the shuttle bus back to a different part of the canyon called ‘Hopi point’ which is apparently one of the best places to catch the sunset from. Although many of us were very tired from our trek down into the canyon (some of the tour group didn’t do it and wandered around of their own accord), nearly everybody on the tour came out for this. We got there around 7pm and the sun was literally in front of us slowly sinking behind the canyon, and turning all of the rock formations a beautiful red and orange colour. It took around 30 minutes for the sun to completely disappear from when we arrived at 7pm, and as it did, so it made beautiful shadows on the rocks in the distance as it hit higher and closer points. I got some great photos of it, and it was something that I’m so thrilled to be able to say I’ve seen.
We boarded the free shuttle back to the lodge, with several people getting off a few stops beforehand to go to the bar at the other lodge (Maswick lodge). Marnee and I went down to the cafeteria at our lodge (Yavapai lodge) for a quick bite to eat, before heading back to my lodge room to chill out and watch some TV whilst the others were out. Once the others arrived back, they were all in good spirits and had arranged for Caddie to host yet another Contiki ‘room party’ with Sam and Kirsty hosting the last one back in Anaheim. So around 25 of us (including Marnee and I) bundled down into Caddie’s room where we chatted, laughed, played card games, watched TV and had our iPods playing through some speakers. It was such a great laugh, as was the other ‘party’ back in Anaheim. Thankfully people from the Contiki tour were staying in the rooms either side of Caddie’s and were with us, otherwise there was no way we could have gotten away with being quite so loud and rowdy!
I got through a third of the bottle of Malibu I bought from Wal-Mart the day before which made Marnee’s attempts at card tricks for us, all the more impressive! Everyone was having a great time, and I made my way around the room from bed to bed chatting and laughing with loads of people. However around 1:30am Caddie wanted to get to bed, so we all left, with several people following suit back to their own rooms, but others heading on to another person’s room to continue the ‘party’. Feeling a bit wobbly myself but still able to remember the early start the next morning, I called it a night like a few of the others, and headed back to my room.
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Lisa Kostecki
non-member comment
wow
All i can say is WOW, that sounded amazing. along with everything else you have done so far. We miss you so much and are so happy you are having a spectacular time. Talk to you soon, and we'll keep reading so keep typing. All our love, mum dad sis and roxy xxx