Wednesday, April 23, 2014 (Grand Canyon, AZ)

Boy, what a rough night we had.  The wind was terrible and didn't end at 7:00 p.m. like forecast, it went well into the wee hours of the morning.  So needless to say we didn't get much sleep.  We still got up early to go hiking though.  We left the house around 7:15 a.m. and stopped at McDonalds for a egg mcmuffin.  We got to the Grand Canyon around 8:30 a.m. and found a parking spot near the Bright Angel Trail we were planning on hiking.  It was definitely cool out this morning, before we left home I checked the temps at Grand Canyon and they were approximately 32 degrees.....brrrr.

We got started on the trail around 9:00 a.m. and our plan was to hike 1.5 miles down to the first resthouse on the Bright Angel Trail which was listed as a moderate hike and time to complete was listed between 2-4 hours.  Let me tell you right off, going down is the easy part.  We were surprised at how many people that we met coming up the trail that had been hiking since 6:00 a.m. that morning.  Some of them were coming from Phantom Ranch and others from Indian Garden where they have a campground.  I was glad that I was just carrying a camelback water pack instead of a 35 lb. backpack. 

We made it to the first resthouse by 10:00 a.m. and took a little break before heading back up the trail.  We debated about going another 1.5 miles to the second resthouse but decided that we weren't quite ready to tackle the 3 miles of uphill that would require.  Besides we didn't want to leave Gracie that long back at the 5er.  You can't take dogs on the trails below the rim of the canyon. 

Well like I said, going down was the easy part.  You definitely expend some effort hiking uphill.  I now see why the folks going down are all cheerful and chatty while the ones going uphill are so much quieter.  We made really good time and made it up in an hour and 15 minutes.  Our total hike time was just 2 hours and 15 minutes.  Not too bad.  Once we were up, we talked about how maybe we should have gone for the second resthouse.  I'll let the pictures tell the story of our amazing hike.



First tunnel at .2 miles down with an elevation change of 60 feet



You can see the trail going down, down, down

One of the switchbacks on the trail

2nd tunnel at .8 miles down and a 590 ft elevation change

The soil was a red powder, very light and fluffy and it covered your shoes and pant legs

pretty purple flowers

Rich made friends with this squirrel (to the lower right)

Near the 1st resthouse, 1.5 miles down and an elevation change of 1,120 feet.  Now we just have to climb back up.....

Please don't stand so close to the edge of the trail....yikes

We started seeing a lot more people coming down the trail as we were going up.  It was starting to get a lot warmer, glad we were headed up and not down

We did it!  Only took us 2 hours and 15 minutes for a 3 mile hike with an elevation change of 1,120 feet.....we're ready for more.

As we headed back to the truck, the train was just arriving (this is the same train that leaves each morning by our rv park).  Rich caught a picture of the conductor.

On the way out of the canyon we decided to take a little detour and check out a couple of the view points along Desert View Drive and find a place to eat our lunch.

We had never seen a cougar sign before, guess we'd better be careful where we choose to have our lunch so we don't become the cougars lunch.  =)

View point on Desert View drive where we ate our lunch....quite the view don't you think?

We were back at the 5er by 2:00 p.m.  what a great day.  We had so much energy left that we worked on dusting the 5er off and washing the front cap to get rid of all the squashed bugs.  It's amazing how many bugs can accumulate from just one short jaunt down the road. 

After dinner, we walked down the street to the Dairy Queen and splurged on a Dilly Bar, I do have to say that we enjoy the blizzards more than the Dilly Bars.  We've enjoyed our stay here in Williams and our two visits to the Grand Canyon but tomorrow we move on.   See you down the road.