Wilderness Wandering

Wednesday, March 6, 2024

We arrived mid afternoon at one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World. It was partly sunny and about 45 degrees. We drove to the Visitor Center and got our passport stamp. Next we drove to Mather Campground to choose a beautiful campsite since there were many sites available.  We got a lovely, secluded campsite on the Juniper loop. The sites are spaced nicely and have beautiful trees. The bathrooms are clean and have heat and electrical outlets. All things we are always grateful for. 

We drove back to the VC and watched the park movie and walked to the Mather Point observation deck for our first glimpse of the spectacular view.  We were thinking we would watch sunset from Yavapai Point. The Grand Canyon is one of the National Parks that has a shuttle system that operates year round. We took the shuttle over to Yavapai Point and spent a long time at the Geology museum and enjoying the view of the canyon. We decided to walk the rim trail back towards to VC and we watched sunset from Mather Point. 

Thursday, March 7, 2024

Tim saw elk when he left the van this morning! 

We decided we would hike The South Kaibab Trail a ways down into the canyon. The trail is 6.3 miles from rim to canyon floor and descends 4860 feet. 

We took the shuttle to the trailhead and started hiking about 8:30 AM. Our plan was to hike down 3 miles to Skeleton Point  and  assess how we felt before going further. The signage  at the start of the trail reminded us that it generally takes twice as long to go up the trail as it did to go down.  The trail was wide and in excellent condition. The trail is also used by mules, so the trail had some mule droppings along the way.  

It began to snow big fluffy snowflakes. You couldn’t even tell you were at The Grand Canyon. Visibility was zero.  

By the time we made it to Skeleton Point, the snow was rain and the trail was a sea of mud. We elected not to go further and started back up the trail. My shoes weighed about 10# each. It was an excellent workout! We were cold and soaked upon our return. 

We met a couple from Australia as we waited for the shuttle. The husband had a fabulous Scottish accent. Tim and he had a wonderful conversation about rugby. They gifted us a cute little koala for the van. We drove to the bath house with coin operated showers at the campground. We both took a hot shower and changed into dry clothes. It may have been the best $5.00 we have ever spent! I made some hot chocolate and we felt better. The sun came out for a little while too. 

We went to The Grand Canyon Village and walked around. We toured Bright Angel Lodge and had a drink at the bar. Tim discovered a gigantic fireplace and he didn’t want to leave.

We also checked out El Tovar hotel, one of the old fashioned lodges built of old dark logs. We spent quite a bit of time perusing the beautiful native crafts at Hopi House. The woven blankets and gathering baskets were spectacular. I could have dropped a fortune on pottery as well. 

The snow started again as we walked back to Calypso. 

We went back to the campsite and had our Mr. Buddy heater warm us up.

Friday, March 7, 2024

It was a very chilly morning. I came back from brushing my teeth to Tim telling me a small herd of elk had wandered right through our camp site. I got ready and went for a walk and found the elk!

We left the campground and drove to The Bright Angel Trailhead. On our way to the trailhead we stopped at The Kolb Brothers Studio and The Lookout Studio. Both studios are beautiful old preserved buildings from the earliest days of the park. The Kolb Brothers were some of the original “promoters” of the park. In the very early days of moving pictures, the brothers made the movies of themselves rafting The Colorado River and doing other stunts in the park and built a showroom where people could watch their movies. The original projector was on display. Lots of cool history. We finally arrived at The Bright Angel trailhead. We knew most of the trail was closed, but we were able to do the first 1/2 mile of the trail. It is more shaded than The South Kaibab Trail, so it was a little icy. We are thinking we will return at some point to do The Rim to Rim Hike. 

After that, we drove The Desert View Drive about 35 miles to The Desert View Watchtower and stopped at the scenic views along the way.

We walked around The Desert View area. We observed a Ranger using a radio antenna to track the condors in the park. There are about 10 condors in the Grand Canyon. Nationally, the condor population is up to about 350 birds and they are all banded. One condor died recently because it ate a coin and got zinc poisoning. 

We  really appreciated the architecture of the Desert View tower, which was designed by Mary Colter,  an American architect and interior designer who was the chief architect for the Fred Harvey Company in The Grand Canyon from 1902 to 1948. She designed The Hopi House, The Lookout Studio, and the Desert View Watchtower, all of which remain today. Her creative buildings took inspiration from the landscape and American Indian designs.  

We stopped to take our photo as we left the park. This was park #32 of 63!

We continued toward Page, AZ to see one of my bucket list items, Lower Antelope Canyon. Along the highway we saw signs to Horseshoe Canyon. We made a pitstop there to see where the Colorado River bends in a horseshoe shape. It was quite touristy, but also quite beautiful. 

We had reservations for the Lower Antelope Canyon tour for Saturday AM, but we arrived in Page about 2 PM. We drove out to the tour facility and asked if there was any room to take the tour yet Friday. We were extremely lucky that there was room for the 2 of us at 3 PM.  Antelope Canyon is located on a Navajo Reservation and the tours are run by The Navajo Nation and the guides are members. The tour started with a Navajo man demonstrating their hoop dance and then we began the tour. Lower Antelope is actually an underground slot canyon. Back in 1997, 11 tourists died tragically when a flash flood roared through the canyon. After that, ladders were installed so people can evacuate quickly when necessary. We descended into the canyon and immediately were awed by the gorgeous colors of the Navajo sandstone walls. I think each of us took hundreds of photos! Our guide gave us a great combination of history, geography and photography tips. He took photos of each group at several beautiful points. It was a great final activity for this leg of our trip.