To The Grand Canyon We Go

 

Back in Juicy to drive from Zion to the South Rim.  The views were beautiful and we stopped along the way, including a few road side Navajo art stands and massive bolder outcrops along the road.  The kids endlessly entertained themselves with car games, books, and Fidget spinners.  Merrick and Grace spent over an hour playing some version of guess what color sucker I am holding.  I think they now know every nuance of Dum-Dum Sucker labels.  The expanses of the drive were huge, from Zion to the South Rim of the Canyon requires a large arc of a drive to circumnavigate the canyon.  The Canyon is amazing and there are no words to describe its beauty, vastness or longevity in the lanscape that will outlast us. It is truly huge in all aspects.  Our first views were from Desert View and the Tower, circling ravens and turkey vultures add to the splendor of it all.  We hit the overlooks and scouted the trails for the tomorrow's hike.  There is a Rim to Rim hike, we didn't even consider this 22 mile hike to the bottom of the canyon and then back up the other side.  We looked at both trail heads on either side and planned a deadhead hike down and back.  There was excessive heat warnings and the temperature increases 10 degrees for every 1000 feet you go down.  With a rim temperature in the nineties the canyon floor is over 120 degrees.  The canyon is over 5000 feet (a mile) from rim to river.  We headed in to the main visitor center and were immediately greeted with three roaming elk.  Later in the day on the way back our hotel we stopped for two massive 7x7 males in full velvet browsing along the road.  We spoke with the ranger and decide to hike the South Kaibab trail to Cedar Ridge the next morning and get an early start to avoid the heat.  We ate dinner and then headed back to Mather point for a Star show.  It was a cloudless new moon night and the local astronomer's club was hosting a star gazing event with more than 40 telescopes on the Canyon's rim.  We saw nebulae and Saturn's rings along with binary stars and multiple planetary moons.