Grand Canyon South Rim

Our first morning at the Grand Canyon South Rim we had scheduled a flight-seeing tour in a small plane over the canyon.  When we woke to gusty wind we wondered if the tour would take place.  It was our lucky day because, not only did the tour go, but we were two of only five passengers signed up for the flight.  So we flew on a smaller plane than the usual plane used for this tour, which meant all seats were window seats.  And, though the other group of three boarded the plane first and took first choice of seats, they left us two seats on the left side of the plane, which, since the plane circles the canyon counter clockwise, is the side overlooking  the canyon for the entire flight.  It was spectacular!  Here are some photos from the flight...

The Kaibab Forest ends abruptly at Canyon's edge

Occasional glints of sun off the surface of the Colorado River

After the flight we alternated walking with riding the shuttle bus along the rim trail, all the way to Hermit's Rest at the end of the road where we found another beautiful stone building designed by Mary Colter.  Of course we saw many more beautiful views of the canyon along the way...

Despite Colleen's unruffled appearance, the winds were pretty brisk. 

The muddiness at low center is the Colorado, which an early explorer described as "Too thick to drink, too wet to plow."

And this sweet creature as well... with a mouth full of something tasty for his winter pantry...

By late afternoon the wind was strong and gusting and we noticed there were no more planes or helicopters flying over the canyon.  We were glad we took the first (and maybe last) flight of the day!

We had another simple dinner at the Bright Angel Coffee Shop and called it a night.  Tomorrow morning we are considering a walk down into the canyon...  No, not to the bottom... but we would like to get at least a little way below the rim.

We woke to cloudy skies which gave the canyon a whole new look.  Patches of sun and shade move across the landscape creating a constantly changing palette of colors.

Once again, a passing Raven wanted to be in our blog. 

The weather report for our last day here is... well... shall we say not perfect.  Windy and sixty percent chance of rain.  We decided to give the canyon a go anyway, choosing the Kaibab Trail, one of two trails into the canyon from the South Rim.  Kaibab is the steeper of the two trails but has a viewpoint just 1.8 miles and 760 vertical feet into the canyon.  The trail started out switchbacks and stairs, with some less steep sections farther down.  

If you look carefully, you can see many switchbacks up the cliff face.

Further down the trail. In the lower right there is a mule train winding their way up. Some of their passengers did not look particularly happy. I would prefer to be as close to the ground as possible on this trail.

It became increasingly windy as we walked but the view from the appropriately-named "Ooh Aah Point" was totally worth it. From there, we had about a 180 degree panorama.

On the way back up the wind increased and rain began falling.  We made it to the top before we put our rain gear on... and then the downpour began... soon turning into hail.  By the time we boarded the shuttle bus we were dripping water and other visitors with less appropriate clothing were soaked to the skin.  We made it back to our warm dry little cabin and spread our wet clothes out to dry.  We sneaked a contraband rice cooker in, heated some canned soup for lunch and settled in to catch up on email and write a little on the blog for the rest of the day.  Now, after a fabulous dinner at the Arizona Room we are done for the night.  Tomorrow we drive to Joshua Tree for a three night stay.  Weather reports suggest we may wake up tomorrow morning to the first snow of the year...