The Grand Canyon Trip tavel log part 2

The Grand Canyon Trip

On the road

I did not mention this before but the opal mining part of my trip had completely fallen through at the last minute and I had to scramble to pull together a place to stay. It turned out great though letting me book a funky sweet at the venerable El Cortez and use the rental car for day trips.

The biggest and most amazing road trip was the trip to the Grand Canyon. Four and a half hours each way leaves little time for running around but I had found an internet guide on how to do it and I had the perfect map.

Pictures that go with the story are at the following internet address

http://picasaweb.google.com/123Scooter/GrandCanyonTrip

Getting up early in Vegas is tough even with the 3 hour time difference in your favor. I stopped for coffee on the road a Mickey D’s with strange sculptures around it. I vaguely remember a news story about the artist. Crossing the Hoover Damn in to Arizona the desert is different yet again; it looks like great sand dunes made of gravel. As you come down in elevation there are the flattest vistas and straightest roads I have ever seen. Every once and a while there was an exit with a town name but even though you could see for miles there was nothing in sight. The only useful break town I found was Seligman which claims it is part of Old RT 66 but it is on new RT 40.

Twin Twisters Flank the Highway

Over a little rise from Seligman two giant dust devils came into view on either side of the road. I did not realized how big they were until I was fixing up the pictures. There is a tiny white dot in front of one and when I zoomed in it turned out to be a barn. Carefully looking at the pictures I realized just on the other side of it other tiny dots were houses. I drove right between them and did not get whisked off to OZ although I doubt OZ could have seemed much stranger. The one thing it is tough to see in the picture is how tall they were the brightness of the sky was too much for my camera whiting out the picture.

The Grand Canyon

You turn north at Williams and it’s just 60 more miles to Grand Canyon Village on the south rim. On the way you drive though some short desert pines called the Kaibab National forest. Inside Grand Canyon National park and straight ahead you come to a parking area with a walking trail right on the edge of a very big ditch; a stunning miraculous ditch. You can get incredible views right from there and there are a couple beautiful overlook points filled with tourists. The thing that amazed me was how easy it was to get right to the edge and look down thousands of feet with out safety rails fences or barriers of any kind it was great.

I stopped at the visitor’s center to find my way around and decided the main thing to do was to get to the famous Bright Angels Trail and trek down as far as I could. The lower half of Bright Angels Trail can be seen as a thin tan line going out across a level area at the bottom of the canyon in lots of my pictures before I even get there.

Earlier in Valley of Fire State Park I really wanted to get pictures of big wildlife while so I snapped pictures of a grey squirrel, I had no idea what would run me over in a few minutes on Bright Angels Trail. Moving from view to view kept my heart beating fast it was so beautiful.

Sinister Big Bird

In stead of taking a park bus to get to bright angels I motored over to the nearest parking area on the map for the Grand Canyon Railway. Across the tracks and through the Bright Angels Lodge I ran into my first big wildlife. Condors, huge vulture like birds hanging out on rock outcroppings just below a tourist shop with an out look. If you look closely all the condors have numbers on their wings and are carefully tracked by the park service. It’s no guarantee if they fly off with your poochie that they will be able to find it for you though.

There were lots of other people on the trail but the narrow spots and sheer drops made you feel like you were still seeing something authentic.

Attack Of The Big Horns

Then it happened not far down from the trail head I ran into a heard of long horn sheep. It was amazing it was as if all the things that changed my plans, made me get up late, etc. all were meant to put on the trail in that spot at that moment to get the wild life pictures I had been hoping for.

Just after coming through a cut in the rock people started pointing below the trail and then something came vertically out of the canyon and spooked by people on the trail leapt directly over the trail to stand on a sheer rock face 10ft above it. As I started snapping pictures more of them started appearing adults and young in a group of about 8 or 10. Snapping picture and trying to watch at the same time I realized too late that I was in their way. They split up and went around me on both sides. The heard wanted to get through the cut in the rock and go up the trail but it was crowded with tourists worshiping the shade under the arch. People behind me shouted let them through but not before some sheep had found there way into interesting places to pose for pictures. A young couple coming up pointed out to me that the Condors were following the heard, some in the air and one perched just above on the rocks. It was like Wild Kingdom with Marlin Perkins/ Cycle of Life Kind of stuff.

I only continued down about a mile, enough to get a completely different perspective on the canyon and went back up. I felt really great and even though I only spent 3 hours at the Canyon it was totally worth it.

Will Miracles Never End

One more miracle happened on the drive home, a cop back in Vegas pulled me over for failure to yield at a merge, (I was lost and trying to read a map in the dark while driving.) I talked to him and he let me off with a warning. He even gave me directions; I was on the right road going in the wrong direction. Next I found cheap gas at the only corner I could turn around on and back at the El Cortez I got a parking space next to the entrance.

Next - Coyote Ugly

The Next day It all went crazy I was leaving the fabulous El Cortez on Fremont Street for a cheap Motel by the strip and I had to return the rental car.

More to follow