The Grand Canyon is breathtakingly beautiful. It's so vast it's insane. All of the ridges are so defined and the markings of each level on the rock so clear-cut that you question whether it could really have been produced by Mother Nature alone. But, it was, which is what makes it so amazing. Both Thomas and I feel very fortunate to have been able to experience it in the most real way possible, by hiking in and around it.
^ There I am, the little grey dot in the bottom left.
The long:
Friday:
After a 4 and a half hour drive from Las Vegas we arrived at our hotel, Maswik Lodge, located within the South rim of the Canyon, at just gone 4pm. With no time to spare we got our trainers on and hit the Bright Angel trail ASAP, which takes you all the way down to the base of the Canyon to the Colorado river if you have a whole day and 15 miles of serious strength inside of you. The trail zig zags across one cliff face and the only way up is the same way as down, meaning that the entire return journey is steep uphill. Thomas and I made it to the "1 1/2 Mile Resthouse", so completed a 3-mile loop, which I would ordinarily predict should take 1 hour, but actually took us 2 due to the severe bends and unrelenting uphill return.
We passed a huge amount of hikers on their way up; we didn't spot so many others going down, and were asked a number of times "going down?", "where are you off to at this time?" - Needs must! I was determined to reach our goal post before we turned back and am so glad that we did. We were lucky to be able to watch the sunset as we descended further into the Canyon, and the way it lights up individual ridges one-by-one in a brilliant blazing orange red.
I really enjoyed the hike as Thomas and I had good fun playing "21 questions" and it was amazing to be able to see the sun set on the Canyon, but I would have preferred for the trail to take us round the different ridges of the Canyon and allow us to see it from different angles, rather than purely different heights. 2 hours later and in slightly different light to what we had set out in, we reached the top, a little sweaty but very satisfied.
After briefly surveying the dinner options in the food court and concluding that school dinners were something that I thankfully no longer had to be subjected to, Thomas and I decided to drive to the nearest supermarket and make our own little feast in our hotel room. We bought ourselves a cheeky rotisserie chicken and lots of veggies, dips and chips to munch it down with.
Despite the photo it was blooming tasty, and we had a little giggle about life's contrasts (isn't that right MJ) having dined at Hakkasan not 24 hours prior. With an early start in order the following morning we went to sleep pretty much immediately after we filled our bellies.
Saturday:
The alarm woke us at 05:25am. Delightful. We dragged ourselves out of bed and were out of the door 20 minutes later, in the pitch black and FREEZING cold, so as to get to a specific point from which we wanted to watch the sunrise. As you can imagine we were not alone, and there was an eerie communal respect for one another and the peace that we were surrounded by as people stood still and silent, waiting and watching.
I cannot tell you how cold I was, despite hopping from one foot to the other and having my hands shoved under my armpits; even my teeth were cold! After running up and down a short hill a number of times to get the blood pumping, I was overjoyed to see the sun begin to rise from it's hiding spot and shine light (and heat) on both us and the Canyon ridges.
It was really rather spectacular to watch the Canyon slowly being filled with light and I'm so glad that we got ourselves up to see it (thank you for the recommendation Nick!).
I still really don't understand how the different colours of rock were created and how the lines can be so perfect, but I suppose that this is something I should now really look up. Regardless, it is stunning.
Thomas and I walked back to Maswik Lodge for some coffee and breakfast, before embarking on our 5-mile hike along the Hermits Rest trail. We took the free shuttle bus to Monument Creek Vista where we began the walk back to base. This trail was much more moderate in terrain compared to the Bright Angel trail and, because it lead you along the rim of the Canyon, provided perspectives of the Canyon from many angles, so was ideal as far as we were concerned and gave us a totally different experience from our previous hike. The trail is incredibly scenic and has several popular outlook points, which we gladly used to see the Canyon in all its wonder.
We also got to see some fleeting wildlife, which made me very happy,
and saw a huge amount of dead trees, which was very interesting having learnt that the Canyon is hit by 80,000 lightning strikes per year, mainly during Monsoon season.
It was a wonderful hike and definitely both mine and Thomas' favourite of the two that we did.
^ Check out the moon.
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