Happy Birthday, Dad

Grand Canyon Sunrise

Dad, here is a sunrise shot from Mather Point here at the Grand Canyon. It was captured this morning in your honor. I hope you enjoy. Happy Birthday!

Me at Moran Point

Now I know that what parents really want are pictures of their kids. So Dad, here are a few of me here at Grand Canyon National Park.

The first image is at Moran Point which is east of Grand Canyon Village on the road to Desert View. And yes, the drop-off behind me, next to me, and in-front of me is as steep and deep as it looks. And yes, I did jump the gap to get out to that point. I’ll be careful, I promise.

Plateau Point

This next picture was taken at Plateau Point which is down in the canyon past Indian Garden off of the Bright Angel Trail and can be seen from the rim above. It’s a little over 6-miles of hiking to get there with over 3,000 feet in elevation change. It’s an amazing experience to be down in the canyon with 3,000 feet of it above you and still another 1,000 feet down to the Colorado River below you. One of the more interesting aspects of the hike is that while I’m in a t-shirt in the picture (and getting awfully warm, I would have been happy in shorts and sandals), by the time I got back to the canyon’s rim I was in a light-weight winter jacket and walking on an icy trail.

On the truck

In the last image I was taking pictures from the back of my truck. I needed a little extra height and shooting from the tailgate happened to be the perfect height for my shot.

I’m sure I’ll have a couple more pictures to add sometime later next week, especially since I’m heading down to Phantom Ranch at the bottom of the canyon on Monday. I’ll be there for two nights, returning to the rim on Wednesday.

Please click on any image for an expanded view.

This entry was posted on Friday, March 13th, 2009 at 10:28 am and is filed under Arizona, Artist-in-Residence Grand Canyon, Colorado Plateau, National Park. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.