After a well-needed night of rest at the Grand Canyon Plaza Resort (read: this place had a pool, and as a result, decided to call themselves a “resort”… very cunning…), we hopped in the car and made our way to the Park. After a brief stop at the Visitor’s Center to get our bearings, we ventured into the great unknown of the canyon. We decided to take the Bright Angel trail, which is a three-mile descent into the Canyon, and three miles back up. The trail was beautiful – we descended nearly 2,000 feet, passing all sorts of rock formations, wildlife (including POSSESSED squirrels, some eagles, and a beautiful blue jay), trees and cacti, and of course interesting people. We noticed a lot of people were speaking French – really, almost every group we passed. We were trying to figure out why this was the case (French holiday? Something abut Canada?) but still haven’t figured it out. IT was funny to watch a group of Australians freak out over seeing some squirrels for the first time too, considering Australia doesn’t have these lovely creatures running around everywhere like we do. The canyon squirrels were weirdly different from Virginia ones though… they were more pear-shaped, were spotted, and definitely weren’t afraid to come up and crawl on your feet or get an inch away from your face if they saw you eating. They also made a horrible screeching sound. We prefer the East Coast variety…
We were lucky that the trail wasn’t that crowded (we think the Canyon probably is the busiest during the summer), and that it wasn’t too rocky. We even passed a few mules (which Meredyth learned come from breeding a horse and a donkey… is she the only one who never knew this?)! We took approximately six bajillion pictures.
We meet a really cool older couple who were hiking all the way to the Colorado river at the bottom of the canyon (a 10-12 hour hike – one way!). We learned that they had just moved to Arizona from Vermont, and had lived in a lot of different places before that (including San Francisco!). They told us that they had always chosen where to live by just moving there – on a whim – and then looking for practical elements like a job or a place to live. They also told us they were planning to spend Christmas at the bottom of the canyon camping. We were definitely inspired by their sense of adventure, and they definitely approved of Ashley moving to San Francisco just because it had always been a dream of hers. We hope that when we are 60 years old, we still have their sense of adventure.
The hike back up the canyon was definitely challenging, but we ended up finishing the whole hike in a little over four hours (we were pretty proud of ourselves considering the ranger said it could take six hours). Then we walked some of what is called the Rim Trail, which basically winds along the top rim of the Canyon. There is a really convenient shuttle bus that picks you up and drops you off all along the Rim Trail at different stops, so if you get tired you can just shuttle to the next overlook. We alternated between walking and shuttling. One of the shuttles we sat across from a group of 3 older couples who were all traveling together from Erie, PA. One of the couples recently moved to Colorado and the other two made the drive from PA. They were hilarious and seemed to just be giving each other a hard time and having a blast. Two of the couples had been friends since they were kids and the other couple lived in the same neighborhood as the other two. We gave each couple a post card and talked about our trip as well. We are looking forward to taking trips with our husbands/ kids and each other in the future as well! Eventually we found a perch on a rock ledge to watch the sunset from.
The colors really were spectacular – it was especially cool to watch the sunlight slowly creep away from the tops of the canyon, turning the red terracotta ridges to a deep purple almost instantly. It was beautiful.
After a quick pizza dinner (our go-to meal during this trip), we went back to our room, stretched our legs, and crashed.
Here are our recommendations if you’re ever going to come to the Canyon:
- Get up early to hike. It gets pretty hot pretty fast in the canyon, so starting any time after 10am probably wouldn’t be the best idea.
- Stay at the Grand Canyon Plaza Resort. All jokes aside about how it was anything but a resort, the rooms were really nice, we got a pretty good deal, and it is only about three miles from the Park’s visitor’s center. Plus, they have free breakfast (you know how we love our free stuff).
- Definitely leave time to see all the scenic overlooks along the Rim Trail. Though we are glad we took the time to hike in the canyon, hiking in for too long only allows you limited views. The canyon is just so big that it would be a shame only to see one view of it. The shuttle makes seeing it from a bunch of angles pretty easily.
- Wear normal hiking clothing, or else people like us will mock you. Some of the fashion statements we saw while hiking down the canyon were quite a sight: women toting fancy leather Gucci purses, people wearing miniskirts, bathing suit tops, long jeans and flip flops, and a variety of hideous hats. Forget taking pictures of the canyon – someone needs to document the fashion disasters of Arizona tourists.
Miles to go: 846
Total Post Cards Given Out: Who knows
Post Cards Received: 8
States Traveled: VA, MD, WV, PA, OH, KY, TN, MS, LA, TX, NM, CO, UT, AZ
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