Lipan Point, Bright Angel Trail, Mohave Point

Sunrise to sunset, one end to another, and a hike into the canyon. That was my day today. I began my day by getting up a little before 5:30 to drive out to the east end of the park near Desert View for sunrise. All went well, There were a few nice wispy clouds and the light broke through long enough to light up the north rim. I did manage to take a short tumble and in the process I tore my winter pants, this was my first morning to actually wear them. Oh well.

After sunrise I drive back to my trailer in Grand Canyon Village. I needed to catch up my journal entries, prep for my presentation tomorrow, and I needed a little rest. After all that and a little breakfast I headed out the door for a hike down Bright Angel Trail (my first time into the canyon) to the 3-mile rest house.

Six miles round trip and a little over 2,100 feet loss and gained again in 4-hours with a 20 minute lunch break and a few photos on the return trip to the rim. There was some ice on the first mile of the trail, but otherwise the trail appeared to be in good shape, although I wouldn’t know any different since I’ve never hiked it before. I’ll be doing several hikes into the canyon over the next several days and in two weeks I will be hiking down to Phantom Ranch at the bottom of the canyon. I can’t wait. Getting below the rim is an amazing experience.

After my hike down Bright Angel Trail I headed over to the Verkamps’s Visitor Center to take care of a few last minute details for tomorrows presentation.

I was going to head home and call it a day, but after seeing the sky begin to fill with clouds I decided to head out Mohave Point on the Hermit’s Rest Road for sunset. This is a great spot because it sees very few visitors and you have a view down to the river.

Oh, and the last thing, updating the blog at 11:30 at night. I sure hope I spelled everything correctly. Good night.

This entry was posted on Friday, March 6th, 2009 at 11:28 pm and is filed under Arizona, Artist-in-Residence Grand Canyon, Colorado Plateau, Featured Articles, National Park, Today's Image, Utah. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.