Good Morning People!

Many states down now and just two more to go…we are getting there!

We are just heading out from the grand Canyon as I write. We spent 2 nights there and thoroughly enjoyed it. Neither of us had been before and found it very grand indeed! We stayed at a hotel within the park sitting right on the South Rim. It had a view of the canyon and was right on the Rim Trial path. Great location! We arrived Monday afternoon to glorious, sunny weather and headed out for a walk around the Rim Trail. They call it a hike, but it’s just a walk. A beautiful walk, with amazing views of the canyon, but definitely not a hike. This is just one aspect of the bigger picture of the lack of actual hiking that goes on within the canyon. Less than 1% of the 5,000,000 visitors each year to the Grand Canyon actually go into the canyon. We aren’t sure if it’s due to a lack of time, a lack of any sense of adventure or simply a lack of fitness by those visitors every year. We are now members of that elite 1% group and feel so bad for the 99%ers! The canyon is so amazing and the hikes very doable. We did have the advantage of being acclimatized, having spent the last week in Santa Fe and Sedona, both of which are above 4,500 feet, and therefore weren’t as affected by the 6,850 feet altitude.

We chose the Bright Angel Trail for our big hike yesterday. We read that it was the best maintained path and since there was a bit of snow on the ground we wanted the most passable route. Tony did a lot of research(but of course!) into the various distances that one can journey on foot through the canyon. The Bright Angel Trail has 4 levels one can attempt: 3 miles, 6 miles, 9 miles or 12 miles round-trip. These levels are all out and backs, equal distance down and up. And they are very “down” and very “up”. The 12 miles round-trip was labeled as very dangerous for a one day walk. This was suggested only to those who had a night to spend down at the bottom before heading up the 6 miles of steep ascent. Tony read enough things to convince us to heed the warnings and instead we opted for the 9 mile endeavor, which was also apparently too tough for many to attempt in one day. After reading everything we set off with a bit of trepidation. All of the guide books said to plan on 6-9 hours round trip. The trail was amazing and surprisingly empty (we hadn’t read about the 1% club at this point and weren’t sure why we weren’t coming across more hikers). We passed a mule tour and several backpackers coming up who had spent the night down at the bottom, but not a lot more than that aside from a few Pinion Jays . We made it down the 4.6 miles to Indian Garden in about 2 ½ hours. It was gorgeous down there! It was apparently used by the Indians as an oasis during their treks through the canyon. We had a bite to eat down there and started heading back up, as we were concerned about giving ourselves plenty of time for the ascent - we had read and been told that we should expect to take twice the time ascending as we did descending.... It had seemed very steep coming down… we made it back up in just under 3 hours! Now I’m not writing this to make us sound like elite athletes- cuz we’re not- but just to show how surprised we were by chasm ( pun intended) of what we read vs what we experienced. Again- not sure where the disconnect was. Apparently 350 people per year have to be rescued from the paths as they are too unfit to make it back up, but still. And I know the cool weather helped us, but still. If I sound frustrated, I am. We felt cheated out of the experience of making it all the way to the bottom by the propaganda we read. Oh well, next time… And let me be clear- we thoroughly enjoyed the hike and there were some very steep parts that were extremely strenuous.

We finished the afternoon off with a pint and a little nap-yeah it did tire us out a bit- before heading out for a much deserved steak dinner at the Arizona Room and a sighting of mule deer outside the restaurant.

We got up early and are making our way to Vegas- yeah Vegas baby!!!! All of the ”great outdoors” was starting to get to us so we put Vegas back on the itinerary. Come on lucky #11…