Wonders of the American West
Day Eight – 5 June 2011
Grand Canyon
Weather: Sunny, 32
The time difference really plays with you. To bed early and up much earlier. I was awake at four and five but managed to sleep to six. Since tonight was going to be a late one, I made sure my luggage was ready for the departure to Las Vegas.
Breakfast was from a menu with a lot of good choices. I went for the French toast. We boarded the bus and headed for the first of three stops from which we will see one of the seven natural wonders of the world.
I remembered the road except that a large section was burned out from a fire a few years before.
There were a lot of deer on the side of the road, and at least once, Anson had to come to a stop to let the deer cross.
We passed through the National Forest and approached the entrance to the Grand Canyon. It was a two lane road with the little cabin in between.
Gordon said that on the South Rim, there were six lanes going into the park, and on the 4th of July weekend, it could have a line up over a mile long. A quarter of the visitors to the park go to the North Rim, and everyone says it’s the better vantage point, but few want to make the two hundred mile drive from the South Rim.
Good for us. It was Sunday, but there were few cars/buses to be seen.
There was a sign at the entrance indicating that the elevation was 8827 feet, five hundred feet higher than Bryce. The altitude wasn’t much of a problem. Most commercial airliners are pressurized to eight thousand feet so if one can do a long haul flight without problems, they can usually handle this altitude with little problem.
Just don’t go for a jog on your first night.
As we drove to Point Imperial, Gordon told us about the condor and how it was nursed back from extinction due to DDT. Then he asked us what the flight attendant said to the condor that got on the plane with a squirrel under each wing.
Of course, we asked what?
“Sorry sir, only one carrion per passenger.”
Heh.
We arrived at Point Imperial and got our first view at the canyon. I only saw the canyon from the North Rim twenty years ago, so the view from Point Imperial was new to me.
I walked along the edge and then turned down to the lookout. Gordon went by in the other direction having words with another tour guide (there was actually another tour bus there!).
Turned out, the first few from our tour to go to the lookout had a hard time getting by the other group. They had stopped for a lecture from their TD and took up the entire path. Apparently, this was a no-no because it could be dangerous when one wrong step can end up a thousand feet below. On the walk to the Emerald Pools in Zion, the trail had a steep drop off on one side, and a few years ago, a tourist was very seriously injured when he fell while trying to get by a tour group that had stopped in the middle of the trail. Now, it’s a $500 fine if a group of a certain number or more stops in the middle of a path.
There were more than a certain number in that group.
Gordon had said to the TD that they should be doing the lecture above on the edge of the parking lot where there was a lot of room for people to gather and pass. The other TD got snotty about it saying he would report Gordon to the park service.
Yup, go ahead. Then the park service can give him a $500 fine for blocking our access to the lookout.
Well. That was exciting.
So, we got back on the bus and headed to Cape Royal. It was about a half hour drive and the location for our picnic lunch. Gordon offloaded the lunches provided by the hotel and pointed us towards the Wedding Site.
Wow. What a spot for a picnic!!!
The site had some half-log seating only a few feet back from a sheer dropoff overlooking a magnificent section of the canyon. Apparently, people get married at this spot a lot.
I imagined one push could make it a divorce site too.
We sat down and ate our sandwiches in this amazing spot – the highest vantage point in the park.
Gordon had given us an hour and a half to visit the lookout and Angel’s Window.
The walk took about thirty minutes at an easy pace. Photo opportunities abound everywhere!!
Farther down the trail, I reached the lookout. I stood in awe for a few minutes then took pictures.
On the way back, I took the trail to the window.
No, it was not a spot to see the window. It was a spot to stand on top of the thin sliver of rock.
Knee knocking time.
There was railing around the lookout, but if you have the nerve to look over, it was a straight drop to the canyon floor.
Even more knee-knocking was the thin “bridge” of rock I had to cross to get over there. The views were amazing. We could see Marble Canyon from this point.
From there, it looked like a ragged tear in the earth on a large flat plain. We could also see the Colorado River from there.
It wasn’t brown anymore. It was green because all the silt was collecting in Lake Powell.
Along with the dead cow, I imagine.
There was some haze in the distance and Gordon said that it was from the fires in the southern part of the state. It didn’t appear to obscure much. In fact, one ranger who has been up at the north rim for the last six weeks said it was the clearest day in those six weeks.
As I walked back to the coach, a squirrel ran across the path. It was the elusive Kaibab Plateau Squirrel that Anson was always telling us about.
Squirrel was a relative description. This animal was as large as my cat.
And it looked as well fed as the snake.
We left Cape Royal and drove for about forty minutes to the North Rim. This was familiar to me. We had the rest of the afternoon free there. Gordon let us loose at two with a drink arranged in the Grand Canyon Lodge at 4:30 and dinner an hour later. We immediately headed towards Bright Angel Point where I could get a good shot of the Grand Canyon Lodge.
The lodge was originally built in 1928 in a very grand fashion but burned down in 1932 and rebuilt a little less grander. But one grand feature remained – the picture windows that would have given a visitor their first view of the canyon. There were three huge windows arranged in a bay style. With trees lining the road as you arrived at the lodge, this would have been their first view.
Bright Angel Point was, without a doubt, the best vantage point on the North Rim (Cape Royal was as good or better than any view from the North Rim).
It was about a fifteen minute walk down a paved path that has some sheer dropoffs on either side. With the high wind, it was a wonder some of the tiny women weren’t swept off the path.
And you think I’m joking.
We took pics and tried the other two trails that run parallel along both sides of the mesa, ending at the campground a mile away.
We didn’t get anywhere close to the campground. Once we started walking away from the point, we could see the box ends of the canyon on either side.
So, we went back to Bright Angel Point for seconds and stayed a little longer.
Beautiful.
We checked out the gift shop then went in search of my lemonade at the lodge.
Gordon gave out the drinks to everyone and got everyone to put their cameras on a coffee table so that we can get a picture of the entire tour in front of the fireplace. The Maitre D’ didn’t look impressed as we killed ourselves laughing. Anson didn’t know how to use a view finder and kept picking up the digital SLRs waiting for the picture to come up on the LCD. He was too young to remember how we used to use cameras and digital SLRs didn’t always have an LCD screen in 2011.
He was a sweetheart.
When we were finished, we asked Gordon and Anson to pose for a picture.
Now, imagine this. Anson sat very dignified in his black pants and white shirt in a comfy chair and Gordon stood at his side with his hand on Anson’s shoulder.
And thirty-two people were taking their picture.
Now, imagine you’re just a regular tourist walking through the room where thirty-two people were taking photos of these two men posing like this.
Yup. They stopped to take pictures too.
Then one asked me, “who are they?”
I should have said Denzel Washington and Sean Connery.
But I said our tour guide and driver.
The guy frowned and walked away, deleting the picture.
LOL.
Gordon told us he had the same thing happen to him when he was dropping off a tour in New York and all the passengers were taking his picture.
Wait until we make our last stop at Planet Hollywood!
After the drink, we made our way into the restaurant for dinner. It was a beautiful stone room, like something out of a medieval castle.
And filet mignon was on the menu.
Originally, Insight had wanted us to return to Jacob Lake for dinner and this would have meant that we would have missed the sunset. Gordon argued the point and said that seeing the colours change as the sun goes down was why some of us were here. It was the most impressive part of the day at the North Rim. Insight gave in and rightly so. The experience was awesome.
The filet mignon was delicious and I had mint chocolate chip ice cream for dessert.
Perfect end to a perfect day.
Then the sun started hitting the canyon and we went out to take pics. A few of us went down to the lookout on the right side below the lodge. This was the better vantage point, but watch your hats!! The wind on that point must have been gusting to ninety at times.
We watched the shadow climb the canyon walls and the pics really can’t capture the scene.
Once the sun disappeared, I took some pics of the canyon floor and found them better defined in the low light. The smoke was a little more visible as well.
Gordon came out to herd everyone back to the bus. Anson didn’t like driving this road in the dark because of all the deer.
When I got on the bus, I played a joke on one woman who has a great sense of humour. She was seated two seats in front of me, so I sat in her seat just before she got on and calmly watched the people outside the bus instead of watching her walk down the aisle. She walked down, stopped, looked back and forth and back, and after a moment said, “where’s my seat?”
I couldn’t hold it in any longer and started laughing, then scrambled back to my seat before she could beat me with her purchases.
Heh.
The drive back was slow. The deer were like moths in front of the bus, jumping across the road or just standing on the side of the road staring at us.
We got back just after nine and went back to our rooms to get ready for the last day in Las Vegas.
After more than a week in the wilds of the canyonlands of Utah, Colorado and Arizona, a concrete city was going to be a jarring event.
Go to Day Nine
Go to Table of Contents