Six Weeks/14 Parks
2008
We don’t care what gas costs!
The Bright Angel Trail
The Watchtower at Desert View
THE GRAND CANYON
We got up at 5:30 AM (shock to the kids!) and started down into the Grand Canyon. The Bright Angel easiest trail down into the canyon. If this is the easiest, I’d hate to see the hard ones! We hiked 3 miles down with a rest stop at 1.5 miles, another at the turn-around. Let me tell you, coming back up the 2,200’ ascent is the hard part!
7/7/08
It’s amazing to be able to say “I hiked down into the Grand Canyon!”
Bright Angel Trail is one of the ones used by the Mule Trains. Yes, there is tan dirt, then red dirt, and then there’s the green dirt!
Later that afternoon, we took the Shuttle Bus to the eastern end of the park. The shuttles are free and run on several routes. At the final stop is the Desert View Overlook where you can see the Painted Desert in the distance. It also has views of the Colorado River. Located here is the Watchtower, an amazing structure built in the 1930s by Mary Jane Colter. She hired a Hopi artist to decorate the inside of the tower. The whole stop was real treat.
