The Grand Canyon

June 14

After we had been stared at by the prairie dogs a bit, with the bus parked at the end of the exit ramp, we toodled on off to the Grand Canyon, parking at the Welcome Center at Mather Point on the south rim of the canyon.

I was so excited I thought I’d lose it completely walking from the parking lot up to the rim. There’s no way to actually describe it. And pictures can’t do the job either.

It was just too much. And we didn’t have a lot of time to gawk. The bus had gone on to Maswik Lodge to put luggage in the rooms, and when that was done, it just turned around to pick us up. Judy and I spent a quick 20 minutes in the room, then the bus took us to Bright Angel Lodge for dinner. It’s also on the south rim, just a bit farther west than Mather Point. We could have walked easily, but the time in the room was needed.

When we got to the Bright Angel Lodge, which is literally on the south rim, we spent more time just looking until a table was ready. We watched condors fly, saw mountain goats on the rocks below us, and watched the light change. Even during dinner, we could look out the window and see the north rim across the canyon. Way across one big open space. After dinner, it was back out to watch the last rays of sunlight hit the rocks.

Our plan was to get up early so we could walk back to the rim to watch the sunrise. At 5:11 AM, according to the schedule.

June 15

We did it! We got up at 4:00, showered, dressed, and walked to the rim, getting there well before sunrise. We watched some swallows enjoying the morning, but the condors were not up and out yet. The sheep (goats?) were though, waiting for the light to hit them. Again — I have no words to describe what that was like, and the pictures can’t do much better. But you can see them in the photo section at the bottom of this page.

Walking back to our room from the rim, we saw a small heard of mule deer grazing near railroad tracks. They didn’t look like white-tails, another example of “we’re not in the southeast any longer.” Like the two squirrels we saw earlier, and the prairie dogs for the most part, they were really good at ignoring the human interlopers.

After breakfast, we left Maswik Lodge and stopped at Desert View, farther east on the south rim than Mather Point. Mary Colter’s Watch Tower is still there, and it’s got a great view where you can actually see the river in the distance. Like at the Lodges and the Welcome center, the Park Service has done things simply but well. [That turned out to be true in all the national parks we visited on this trip.]

When we left Desert View and Mary Colter’s Watchtower, I didn’t realize what a long ride we were starting. We started going down hill, leaving Ponderose pines behind, back into scrub land. Off to the left, once we got onto the Navajo reservation, was a flat land that looked split apart with meandering canyons — the Little Colorado River. Off to the right was the base of a long ridge — maybe a mesa? Then we turned left, and everything was flat. Scattered from place to place were isolated Navajo homes. Usually a small house, sometimes with a hogan there as well. And always a pickup truck or two.

We turned again and stopped at Cameron’s Trading Post, which was established when the reservation was new. Quite an establishment now. Huge shop, nice restaurant, quick mart, hotel. Looks like the 19th-century idea of a trading post as a one-stop shopping place, but brought up to date and modified for tourist buses. Lunch for me was really tasty, open-face roast beef and gravy on Navajo fried flat bread. Really good, but too big.

We left the trading post and drove through the Painted Desert. That made all the other deserts look lush! Nothing! Dirt and rocks and some tracks. That was it. [In hindsight, I’m sorry I didn’t take a picture or two!] Eventually the land became a little scrubbier, and it soon looked almost habitable. I guess it really was, because we began to see isolated houses again.

Gradually the red sandstone cliffs on our right became a huge mesa, and the road started up. Along this part of the drive, before and during the ascent, we saw some of the most beautiful scenery of the trip so far. Vermillion cliffs, and some really striking stone formations. Of course, the bus didn’t stop along this way, so I didn’t get any photographs. Eventually we arrived at Glen Canyon and the dam at Lake Powell. Security measures meant we couldn’t tour it the way people once did, but you can see the bridge we drove over in the photo below. That’s a canyon down there!