on the way to the Canyon...guys on fences
Day 6: We drove from LA to Grand Canyon early that day and arrived at the South Rim in the evening. We stayed on a campground about 2-3 miles from the rim in the woods. Once we left the car, we were surrounded by deer, which is very gentle there, because it´s used to humans. It got dark pretty soon (between 9 and 10 pm), so we had little time to drink the beers we had left from our stay in Hollywood. However, we slept pretty early, which wasn´t too bad, since we got up at 4:30am the following day. (Tip: don´t ever try to sleep on a bodyboard! : ) I made the mistake, because I was too avaricious to buy a sleeping pad. It keeps you off of the cold ground, but it breaks your shoulders if you don´t sleep straight on your back) In the night coyotes were all over the campground and they woke up everybody but me, because they must have been very close…I don´t know! ;-)
Day 7: Hiking the Canyon.
We took the Bright Angel Trail to enter the Canyon. It was just amazing! Of course, we started very early, because you have to avoid hiking in the midday´s sun. I have no comparison to other trails into the Canyon, but the great views we had during our walk down, were just beautiful! Very, very impressive! It took us about three hours until we arrived at the campground, where we had a little meal.
We walked around the valley and tried to figure out what we would like to see, later on.
Then we rested at our campground and waited for the heat to decrease.
In the evening we finally hiked to the Plateau Point, which is amazing as well! You thought, you already reached the bottom of the Canyon…not at all! You can see the Colorado River (not very nice, as it´s very dirty • but still very impressive) several hundred metres under the Plateau Point.
Back at the campground it got dark even earlier than the night before (of course, since we were IN the Canyon) and we fall asleep very early. In the night it sounded like thunderstorms hit the Canyon, but beside some single rude blasts hitting the tents, it was just the sound, that made you realize, something was going on! The vast part of it must have been higher!?
Day 8: We got up while it was still dark, as we had to walk several kilometers of distance and almost one kilometer height, to get back to the Rim. And walking up the Canyon it´s of course much more important to avoid the heat. We were very fast…we need just a bit more than 3 and a half hours to get up the Canyon (5 hours were mentioned on the several charts), but it was definitely a hassle. Five young and more or less sportive (depends on the certain person) people with not too much baggage had to struggle to get up again. After that we just bought some eatables in a shop, had a shower and relaxed at the campground, we already stayed at the first day of our Grand Canyon • Trip. This time we slept with five persons in the car, we were to lazy to get our tents ready once more!
