19th April: Grand Canyon

From Wd

Current revision as of 12:01, 7 May 2007

Jinny near Monument Valley (Gavin 19-Apr-07)

Leaving Monument Valley (Gavin 19-Apr-07)

Sign near Monument Valley (Gavin 19-Apr-07)

Petrol Station towards Grand Canyon (Gavin 19-Apr-07)

Little Colorado River Canyon (Gavin 19-Apr-07)

Ron explains the Canyon to Jinny; Bev still has a T-shirt on his head (Gavin 19-Apr-07)

Jinny poses at the Canyon (Gavin 19-Apr-07)

Picnic at the Canyon (Gavin 19-Apr-07)

Jenny munching in the car park (Gavin 19-Apr-07)

Bev in the Canyon car park (Gavin 19-Apr-07)

Chuck's hat in the Canyon (Gavin 19-Apr-07)

'Despite warnings that there aren’t enough engines in a helicopter, we took a flight across the Grand Canyon. We asked if it could loop-the-loop, and the pilot said it could, but only once, so we didn’t try it. Some rocks exposed in the canyon are 1.84 billion years old—amongst the oldest exposed anywhere in the world! And although we love all rocks equally, we can’t help but have a special liking for really old ones.' (Comments by Dan, photo by Bev 19-Apr-07)

Sunset at the Canyon (Gavin 19-Apr-07)

Jinny and Natalie at the Canyon (James 19-Apr-07)

Sunset Wave (Chuck on 48x zoom: 19-Apr-07)

The Making of Sunset Wave (from the DVD Extra Features) (Gavin 19-Apr-07)

Contemplation at the Canyon (Someone with James's camera 19-Apr-07)

Sadly, the group leader was voted off the tour (James 19-Apr-07)

James Sunset (Gavin 19-Apr-07

Jinny's Blog

The next day we left at around 8.00am and took pictures of the Monuments with a bright sun this time. What a difference! We were on our way to the last camping stop, Grand Canyon. A place I have wanted to visit for years and was going to be the highlight of my trip as I promised myself. Ron asked us to take an extra shirt with us in the car and not ask questions about it. I wonder what that is all about!

We stopped at Cameron Trading Post where I bought cactus and jalapeno jelly, BBQ sauce, beer bread mix, Indian fry bread mix and other goodies for gifting. I always buy fridge magnets of places I visit. And for some reason I had forgotten to buy a Bryce magnet. I asked about it everywhere we stopped, but I guess it wasn’t meant to be! When we stopped for lunch, Ron asked us to wear our spare shirts over our heads get in line and not ask questions. Then we made a human chain and he walked us a little distance with shirts over eyes and eyes closed. Then he made a big deal about opening our eyes all together and we were at a view point in South Rim overlooking the entire canyon. If you have been to the Grand Canyon, you know what that first look is like. Quite overwhelming in scale, though the colours appeared much paler than I had imagined. I think the pictures I had seen were taken at dawn or dusk when the redness becomes more pronounced. The North Rim appeared to be very close, though the two rims are as much as 20 miles apart. Anyway the grandeur and scale were unmatched by anything I had seen so far. It was just a little too white.

As we wandered around to get more pictures, I noticed everywhere I went there were posters describing the dangers of hiking in Grand Canyon. Stories with pictures of young athletes who had died while hiking there. They really kicked up the paranoia and I have to say it affected me. I bought extra water bottles though I had a 1.5 litre water bag in my backpack. I bought electrolytes as well. They advise you should eat twice the normal amount and drink a liter of water per hour of hiking. Oh well, I was quite determined to hike as much as I could and felt quite prepared for it.

While Ron went over the hikes, I first decided to do the South Kaibab which was six miles round trip and 2,000ft elevation change. The stories of the dead hikers was still fresh on my mind. Then the super hiker bunch started talking about the Bright Angel Trail which was 12 miles round trip and a little over 3,000ft down. Collette assured me if I had done Yosemite Falls I could easily do Bright Angel. I agreed to do it and give myself the max time published by the newspaper (12 hours) to Plateau Point. And promised myself if it got dangerous I would turn back no matter how disappointed I was.

That afternoon, Gavin, James, Collette, Tim and I saw an IMAX film whereas the rest of the crowd went off for a copter ride. The film was fantastic and I got dizzy as I tried to follow the scene where the copter takes these crazy turns around the bends in the canyon.

The next day was going to be windy and cloudy so we decided to see sunset that night. It was my team’s turn to cook again, but this time we had taken up Chuck’s suggestion and were going to do hot dogs, baked beans and chips. We were going to grill the dogs over open fire. Chuck asked me if we were going to heat up the beans. I wondered how else we were going to serve the beans. He said in all seriousness that we could give people the cans and they could warm them up over the fire themselves. That was way too funny!

The sunset was GORGEOUS! That’s the view of Grand Canyon they show in all pictures, red, orange and all shades therein. Ron took us to an unvisited viewpoint near Mather point with a rock that sticks far out and it was just us put there. It is a short climb down and everybody except the hiking group stayed up at the rim (Collette came down as well after a while). Even though the rock we were on had ledges, they couldn’t be seen from the rim and it appeared to those at the rim that we were taking serious risks with our lives. We took lots and lots of pics, Ron showed us a trick where it looks like we are falling down the cliff. We were like kids full of antics.

I did not sleep well that night, my first. I had been complaining the least about the cold, but it was 22°F that night which is something else altogether. I kept awaking to layer up and finally slept in about four (albeit thin) layers of shirts and pants. I felt the cold rise up from the ground and decided if I didn’t get enough sleep, I would skip the hike. I had already given Jeff’s fleece outer pants to Nat since she had been miserable about her sleeping bag. I couldn’t just ask her to wake up and return them now, could I?

Dodgy Video Footage

• Grand Canyon (Duration 1:52)