Grand Canyon National Park--Day 1
7 May, 2018
At last, we were at the Number One attraction on our trip, the most amazing sight--the Grand Canyon! Of course, we were late. We had arrived after dark the night before, and didn't get up until 7:00. In Arizona, where they don't use Daylight Savings Time, this means more than an hour and a half after sunrise.
I did pick what was clearly the best spot in Mather Campground, though--far off on the edge and yet near the bathrooms. Nice and big, isn't it? See Mather with his recently-repaired rooftop carrier in Mather Campground.
These cow elk are all over the campgrounds, because people either feed them directly or are careless with food.
The Park Service does not allow private cars on some of the park roads between March and September--you must take a shuttle. To discourage driving, the Park Service also operates an optional shuttle through the most popular areas of the park. We don't know what the shuttles are like normally, but construction in Grand Canyon Village wreaked havoc on the system. They were supposed to run every 15 minutes, but we waited 20 minutes for one and then couldn't get on it. The driver said the next one was "right behind me," but when I asked whether "right behind me" meant another 15 minutes, he said yes. By the time we had decided to abandon the shuttle plan and walk along the Rim Trail behind the lodge instead of going out to Hermit's' Rest, we saw another shuttle pull up nearly empty about only five minutes later. Well, we planned to go out in the direction of Hermit's Rest for sunset, so at least we would see it.
Eric got his first look at the canyon at Maricopa Point.
View from the Rim Trail.
Eric took a picture of Cheops' Pyramid.
Here, you can see how deeply the Colorado River has cut the canyon.
Eric took a picture of switchbacks on the upper part of the steep Bright Angel Trail, which we planned to hike the next day.
In the background here, you can see several of the different layers of the Grand Canyon, Kaibab Formation on top (270 million years old), Toroweap Formation (more angled, 273 million years old), Coconino Formation (very sheer, 275 million years old), and Hermit Formation (more angled, 280 million years old). Although these are all ancient Paleozoic rocks, they are still much, much younger than the Vishnu basement rocks at the bottom of the canyon. Those range between 1.68 and 1.84 *billion* years old. [SOURCE: Your Guide to the National Parks by Michael Joseph Oswold]
Eric took my picture in front of the historic studio of the Kolb brothers, famous for the highly dangerous stunt antics for which they would go to get a photo. The brothers would photograph tourists riding mules down into the canyon, run up the steep Bright Angel Trail to their studio, develop the photos, and have them ready when the mules brought the tourists back up to the rim. These guys were carrying heavy 4"x5" cameras, too. They were nuts. And in fantastic shape!
View from further along the Rim Trail.
Eric took a picture of the layers in the canyon.
Eric pointed his camera down at Plateau Point.
Eric captured the depths of the canyon and the closer sculpted forms.
At the bottom of this shot, you can get a glimpse of the Colorado River.
We hiked the Trail of Time, which marks the distance you take in steps against the distance in age of the canyon.
The Trail of Time had some beautiful examples of the rocks deep in the canyon, like these banded spring deposits.
My other favorite was this folded Visnhu basement rock, from very deep in the canyon, almost 2 billion years old.
We were 45 minutes behind schedule getting back to camp for showers and dinner before heading out for the sunset shoot, and Eric also needed to make a further repair to the old rooftop carrier. This was still an improvement over the two hours' behind schedule we had been before.
While Eric was working on the rooftop carrier, I dug to the bottom of the cooler to find the chicken breasts I was making for dinner. I was horrified to find that the Ziploc bag containing them had burst open, apparently with the change in altitude, spilling raw meat juice all over the bottom of the cooler, particularly in a bag of fresh herbs I had harvested from our garden just before heading out on the road. So much for the sunset shoot. Even if I was able to cook dinner in time, which was dubious, we had to clean out the cooler. Maybe we can see Hermit's Rest on another trip. Our chicken was tasty, if not as healthy, with some of Penzey's curry as an alternative to my herbs.
On to hike on Bright Angel Trail to Three-Mile Resthouse.