The Grand Canyon and Bryce Canyon

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Hi everyone, I'm writing this rather exhausted after climbing out of the Grand Canyon this morning! We spent 3 nights there, the first camping wild in the forest near the north rim, the views from which were spectacular. The image of the Grand Canyon is very, very special - another one to treasure forever! Next morning with our packs loaded we trekked down 7 miles through a tributary canyon passing through lots of different coloured layers of rock on a rather precarious at times path, to camp at a lovely wee campsite by a stream. Campsite came complete with picnic bench, metal containers to store all food in and a pole to hang bags on out of reach of the deer, squirrels, lizards, tarantulas, scorpions and rattle snakes! I must say it was really funny watching Donald checking the area outside the tent for snakes before getting up to the loo at night! There was a dead branch shaped rather like a snake which gave him a bit of a fright! Needless to say, despite my fears of nocturnal visitors and the fact we carried our thermarests and pillows down, it was really hard to sleep in the heat, 23 deg at lowest night and 42 day time! Our second day was a 17 mile round trip from our camp down to the bottom of the canyon for a dip in the freezing Colorado river, honestly as cold as home! Being down at the bottom was amazing and we were lucky that very few tourists were around. We had to set off a 6.30 each morning to avoid the heat of the day and sat out the midday heat in the cute phantom ranch canteen at the bottom. While there, there was a flash flood warning due to storms up stream. The wee man working there seemed to take a liking to me bringing over free cookies for us and giving us bin bags and flashlights incase we got caught in the storm on our way back. Free top ups of still lemonade kept us happily entertained for a few hours! Warm rain was very refreshing. Thankfully the storms hadn't flooded our tent and meant that it wasn't too hot for walking back and out today so despite a bucket load of sweat and rather achy legs we made it up and even overtook the mule trail riders on the way up! Prior to the canyon we had a night at Bryce Canyon. It was my favourite camping spot so far, just like Glenmore amongst the pine trees, complete with a rare badger and lots of friendly chipmunks. We hiked down and amongst the most amazing rock formations during the day and after dark went on a full moon walk with a ranger into the canyon ( no flash lights allowed). It was really interesting finding out about the animals that use infra-red and ultraviolet light at night as well as their senses of smell and sound to hunt and feed. Bryce Canyon is a truly remarkable place, the most obscene arrangement of natural rock features that we've ever seen by some distance, truly an incredible place. We've done a lot of hiking the past few days so we are looking forward to sitting in the car all day tomorrow driving east through Monument Valley to the Rockies in Colorado and a relaxing dip in the hot springs at Ouray tomorrow night! Have loved the desert and canyon lands and have only seen such a small amount of it we'll surely be back. Rockies here we come, I can't wait Aspen has been on the bucket list for a while! Lots of love, Kirstin and Donald xxxx

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