Advertisement
Published: August 18th 2008
Edit Blog Post
To start with, I should say that I've seen enough of the Grand Canyon to last me a lifetime of lifetimes!
After another long all day bus ride from Vegas to Arizona (I can see these are going to wear on me quickly) we arrived at the Grand Canyon, we all filed off the bus trying to glimpse one of the seven natural wonders of the world. We walked up the path looking around for it and all of sudden, there it was! Truly breathtaking the first time you see it, pictures and movies just cannot do its size justice. What we could see was just a tiny section of this colossal canyon. You can’t even begin to imagine its size and beauty.
We had a good gander for about half an hour, took lots of photos (there’d be plenty of time for more pictures later) and then headed to our log cabins that we were staying in. Furnished with all the niceties of home, they were great! That evening we just hung out in our rooms as the next day was going to a big one.
Rachel, Valerie and I decided it would be a good idea
to get up early to go and see the sunrise over the canyon. This sounded like a great idea at the time. At 4am the next morning, didn’t seem quite as good. The sunrise was at around 4:50am and it was about a 10 or 15 minute walk to the rim of the canyon from where we were staying. We met at 4:30 and went and saw the sunrise. It wasn’t that great, spectacular or breathtaking to be honest, but it was quite nice. There was a fair bit of wildlife out as well. We saw a deer or an elk, not sure which one, chipmunks, squirrels and lots of little bugs.
First order of business for the morning was a 45 minute helicopter minute ride over the canyon. It put a whole different perspective on it after seeing it from the air. It just drops away underneath the chopper as you fly over the rim and it expands in all directions around out off into the distance. It’s around a kilometre deep and up to 17 miles wide in some places. What we saw from the air was still only a small portion but this thing is massive.
After that exhilarating flight (my first time in a helicopter too) we went back for breakfast.
I met up with Fillip and Kristophe (the Belgium boys) after breakfast and we decided to hike down into the canyon in the afternoon once it had cooled off a bit. Just had a lazy day till then having a rest before the big hike. Our guide Todd told us if we were going to hike down to allow twice as much time as it took to get down to get back out again. We set off down the path at 3pm full of vigour and spirit watching person after person hiking back out sweating and heaving with looks of despair on their faces. We didn’t waiver. Going down was really easy, just watch your step and take it easy and it’s not a problem. There’s a rest stop after 1.5 miles of going down, we stopped and had a drink (I had about 2 litres with me anyway) filled up the water bottles and cooled off. We decided to go for another 20 minutes so that we had walked for one hour in total down into the canyon. There is a photo
taken from the top which can be compared to one of us down in the canyon, which shows just how far we went. It was a LONG way but we weren’t tired. We had another short rest and then turned around for our ascent. My god it was hard. One of the hardest things I’ve ever done, it doesn’t seem like it’s going to be that difficult, but it is. After about 10 minutes of going back up my mouth was full of spit, I was sweating a lot, needed a drink and a sit down. So that’s what I did. This is why it takes twice as long to get back to the top. Every 10 minutes I’d sit down and catch my breath. Kristophe went on ahead marching his way up but Fillip stayed with me. For two agonising hours I did this, Fillip went on ahead for about the last 15 minutes but I made it. I made it! It was such a feeling of accomplishment, looking back down into the canyon and seeing what I’d done. I’m glad I did it but boy was I tired. Coming back out nearly killed me. I struggled back to
the cabin, had a shower and went straight to sleep at about 6:30pm. My entire body was aching, my muscles were sore, but I’m still glad I did it.
I woke up at about 10pm and ate an apple I had in my room and then went straight back to sleep! People from the tour were calling my name out trying to find me when they were going to dinner but I was out like a light. I got up the next morning to get ready for our usual 7:45 am bags to coach; we rolled out of the Grand Canyon at 8. By then I’d seen enough of the canyon to last a life time but one more look was yet to come before we left. I could’ve just stayed on the motor coach (not to be confused with a bus) but I got off for one last look. It lost its appeal after I saw it up close the day before.
We settled down for another all day bus trip to Cortez via Monument Valley. I can guarantee you’ve seen Monument Valley before, the pictures will tell it all.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.087s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 7; qc: 45; dbt: 0.0562s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Yenni
non-member comment
ZOMG a squirrel!