Grand Canyon

Trip Start Apr 20, 2008
1
6
70
Trip End Ongoing


Loading Map
Map your own trip!
Map Options
Show trip route
Hide lines
shadow

Flag of United States  , Arizona,
Wednesday, May 7, 2008

We left Vegas in the afternoon on Monday and started driving towards the Grand Canyon, it was quite a nice drive while it was light, drove around Hoover Dam which is pretty impressive. We stayed a place called Flagstaff which is about 150km southof the Canyon but was a really lovely little town and a great hostel.
Tuesday we went to the Canyon and did a walk called the Bright Angel Trail. The walk went down into the canyon, we walked for about 4-5 hours and went only about 900m down into it. You canwalk all the way down but can't make it back up in a day. there are warning signs everywhere saying not to go too far unprepared and it takes twice as long to get up as it does to get down. Apparantly over 200 overambitious people are air lifted out of the canyon every year and according to a volunteer we met there 2 people were rescued the first day the park opened for the summer.
It was so beautiful though, absolutely stunning, a photo can never do it justice, it's just amazing. You can see very distinctly at least 8 layers of rock and the trail that you walk down changes colour as you descend, starts as a red trail and turns white and yellow and pink, very cool, a geologists dream destination.
Had a great walk, saw lots of chipmuks and squirels and mountain goats and I even got shat on by a condor as I ate my lunch. It hit me in the head and it felt like someone threw a rock at me.. and it stank! Lucky I was wearing a hat.

Interesting fact: The most dangerous animal in the Grand Canyon National Park is the squirrel because they can have rabies
Slideshow Print this entry