First, the Grand Canyon... |
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| May 3: First day in the park, we start at Mather Point and work our way west, we drive to the Lodges area, park and then shuttle/walk our way to Hermits Rest. | |
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| Wildlife, and don't you dare feed it! | along the rim trail... |
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| Mules coming up the Bright Angel Trail. | further down the rim trail... (different perspective of the picture above) |
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| California Condor, they have been re-introduced very successfully to northern Arizona. | Jim making me very nervous at the edge... |
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| From Hopi Point | From Maricopa Point |
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| More of the Colorado River from Mohave Point. | View from Pima Point, the 2nd to last most western view accessible within the park. |
| May 4: we got up at 4:00am (yes,
AM) so that we could be at Mather Point by 5am. We were not the only
ones, but we were among the first 5 or so people. It was worth it to
watch the changes as they happened. By the time the sun actually
rose (above the rim) it was 5:36am and there were over 40 people
watching and taking pictures. I am glad that we got there so early
so that we could stake a place. We went home and then came back in the afternoon to hit a few more of the overlooks. |
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| The sun just starting to think about showing up. | Contrast of layers... |
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| The sun is working it's way higher... | and higher and brighter... |
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| Rays over the rim... | and the sun hitting the western part of the canyon from the same point. |
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| On our way out of the park after the sunrise, we saw three cow elk, here is one of the beauties... | old gnarled tree |
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| early afternoon view... | late afternoon view... |
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| Hopi House, lots of Indian gifts | El Tovar, still run by the Fred Harvey Company. |
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| Lounge inside El Tovar Hotel | We stopped for happy hour, Jim had the Oak Creek Nut Brown ale and I had a Mirror Pond pale ale, and we shared their bruschetta, it was pretty darn tasty! |
| May 5: we decided to go to a few
of the eastern points to view the canyon, then go back home for a
little while and then back out to take sunset pictures from Lipan
Point. We chatted with some Aussies, a couple of guys from London, England (Arsenal fans), a couple from Sao Paulo, Brazil. We have heard Spanish, French, Dutch, German, Swiss, Chinese and Japanese and many more that I couldn't tell.
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| Panoramic picture taken from the Grandview Vista viewpoint along the east drive towards Desert View, I "stitched" 5 photos together to make the full view. | |
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| A couple from Brisbane, Australia; they are spending 2 months traveling here in the US for their retirement gift to themselves. They are blogging from Taz's perspective :) | We are not quite sure what this is; something like a home-made RV. It was being driven by a couple of Germans, along with another car being driven along with it. |
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| Condor over the canyon... | at one of the vista points, there was a trailhead, didn't catch the name :( These folks were just coming up after a 3 day hike in the canyon... they were happy and tired. |
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| Shadows are lengthening... | looking into the sun and the haze... |
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| Early moon rise... | looking into the sun and the haze... part 2 |
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| Long shadows on the east end of the canyon... | Sun is almost gone... |
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| Just a dot... Jim thinks he may have seen a green flash right after this, he could have you know... | using a different filter, sun is gone, but colors are glorious |
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| Getting darker, another filter, just a hint of color left from the sunset. | It was very breezy out there, taking all of the sunset pictures :) |
| May 6: We drove down to the eastern most end of the South Rim, Desert View. They haven't opened the campground there yet, but everything else is. We worked our way back through a couple of stops that we hadn't visited yet, Desert View and Navajo View. We also stopped at the Tusayan Museum and Ruins. | |
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| Another manually created panoramic picture, this time of the east end of the canyon... | |
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| Partially rebuilt housing at the Tusayan Ruins to show you where the rooms were. | Desert View Watchtower, built in 1933 by Mary Colter, hired by the Fred Harvey Company... |
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| Some of the great artwork inside the Watchtower. | View of the Colorado River from atop of the Watchtower. |
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| The Watchtower and the Painted Desert (background) from Navajo Point. | Viewing the viewing area at Navajo Point. |
| May 7: today is a lazy day, visit South Kaibab Trailhead and Yaki Point :) These are the last 2 stops that we haven't visited. | |
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| If you look closely, you can see a little of the South Kaibab Trail along the ridge, at the top you can see a little bit of a zigzag. | This isn't Brighty of the Grand Canyon, but close enough :) As I was standing at the fence taking the picture, he/she came over to get some attention. |
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| This sign was about 60 yards or so from the trailhead, but it was also about a 50 ft drop in elevation. | If you can read them, here are a few stats on the trail. |
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| More of the South Kaibab Trail, along the top, down the side in a huge zigzag. Our friends Dave & Vicki are going to hike down this trail to Phantom Ranch and then hike up the Bright Angel Trail the following day. This all happens towards the end of the month. You guys rule! | We have seen more motorcycles in the last couple of days, the weather has been excellent, perfect for a ride. |
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| Our last parting picture, from Yaki Point... | |
| We had an excellent adventure at the Grand Canyon; it was wonderful to have the luxury of doing as much or as little and having more days ahead to do that much more... | |
