We drove with some excitement from Las Vegas to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon since we left the busy areas of the West coast and entered the vast Colorado plateau. There were only small towns, sometimes nothing less than few buildings around a gas station, as we drove along the interstate. It slowly got dark and while watching the thermometer of the car, we realized that despite being in a semi-arid desert, the 2000m altitude causes severe drops in temperature over night. We had left Las Vegas at sunny 20 C and arrived at 8pm at a temperature of 3 C. Luckily we were well prepared with fire wood and good sleeping bags. Mine had a comfort limit of -5C while Yuki got the posh new -15C sleeping bag. We quickly pitched the tent,
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