Grand Canyon

I picked up a book today ‘Grand Canyon Country’ written by the Superintendent of the National Park and published in 1935. It is fascinating to compare the description of the area then with it as we found it in 2013 on our short visit. A lovely feature of the book is the cartograph by Ruth Taylor White inside the covers ‘on which is pictured whimsically and fancifully some things that Dudes expect to see and then again, some other things they don’t’.

Map of Grand Canyon in 1935 Book (1 of 1)

I certainly plan to return one day and see the North Rim and take a mule trip down the Kaibab Trail with an overnight stop at Phantom Ranch – described in 1935 and still something you can do. We did drive through the Painted Desert in 2013 but other nearby places to visit are Zion National Park and the Petrified Forest which will have to wait for the next trip.

The Grand Canyon

Our first sight of the Canyon from the overlooks on Desert View drive were fantastic. It was great to see the real thing after years of seeing photographs. We settled into our accommodation at the National Park Lodge which is situated among the south rim pine forest. There is a lot of wildlife: birds, squirrels of various types and deer. It was very quiet and after dinner we had a good sleep. We had planned to do part of the Bright Angel Trail which goes down into the Canyon but I woke at 5.30am with a migraine. I got rid of it fairly quickly but it leaves me feeling very tired so I did not think I could do the climb back up to the rim if we did the Bright Angel. We did a section of the Rim Trail instead. Sunday was the official first day of Fall and the temperature had dropped on the rim. This diversion to the Canyon has given me lots of ideas for future visits: the North Rim, on the South – take the bus to Hermit’s Rest and hike back (this is the quieter section) and take a mule ride into and out of the Canyon, staying overnight at Ghost Ranch. I can ride a horse and have ridden Western-style once before in the Appalachians (and Ladakhi-style in the Himalaya) so am confident enough that I can ride a mule. I would also like to hike the John Muir Trail sometime (takes about 21 days).Grand Canyon 3Grand Canyon 4Grand Canyon 10Grand Canyon 11