November 2-9, 2017

What can we say? There are no words to describe the expansiveness of this place! It is quieter here this time of year, however bus after bus rolls in with travelers from the US and the world for their 4 hours of the Grand Canyon- selfies as quick as the phone will take them, people posing on the edge, and then rushing off to the next view point. Fortunately, we are finding the quiet spots and spending time really looking at the canyon.

The geology of the place is fascinating and we went to a Ranger talk about it which created more questions- we ran into him along a trail and walked for awhile with him asking him our questions and he was happy to oblige us.
The weather is around 60 daytime and 40 nighttime, but very windy.

The Canyon has a great shuttle bus system to get you around the 20+ miles of rim, but not enough parking… So we drive, park, walk, shuttle, walk….to get to where we want to be- we can’t imagine what it is like in the peak months! Walking along the eastern rim we discovered Orphan Mine- long story short- it was a copper mine way back and way done over the rim edge, then in the 1950s high grade uranium was found here and mined for several years (yup on NPS land, but the mining rights were old and sold). Now they have a contaminated area, that has been mostly cleaned up and fenced off- of course we found this all fascinating and most people totally missed it!
We took an airplane tour of the Grand Canyon- Clare is a pilot and we have tried to arrange this a few other times this summer- here they have about a dozen planes and helicopters that give tours. Our plane was a 9 passenger Cessna Caravan. They are not allowed to fly right over the part of the Grand Canyon that grounded tourists use, so we flew east and then north, crossing the canyon beyond where the Little Colorado joins the Colorado River, then across the Kaibab forest north of the North Rim flying west until we were beyond Hermit’s Rest and crossing the canyon again.

We were able to see long stretches of the Colorado River, which you can not do from the Rims. The views were amazing, such a different perspective of the Grand Canyon. Oh, did I mention? It was very windy 25 knots and gusty, so we had turbulence, which bothered me quite a bit, but I managed to keep my lunch down and still enjoy the views.
We hiked a short trail down into the canyon about 600ft. drop in elevation in .9 mile. It was all switchbacks and awesome views. We stopped at Ooh Ahh Point and headed back up.

It was nice to see that we did not struggle on the way up, as many did- many who should not have started down! We chatted with several young adults that were doing conservation corp work at the bottom of the canyon- 9 days down and 5 days off in Flagstaff. They hiked up from the bottom in less than 4 hours- about 9 miles and over 5000ft up!!