The Grand Canyon - South Rim

We arrived at Williams (where we turned off for the Grand Canyon) quite late in the day because of the time we spent at the Painted Desert.  After getting about 20 minutes down the road, we realised that our hotel,  booked from London 3 months earlier, was not where we thought it was!  It was actually about 150 miles from the South Rim entrance!  We made an abrupt change of plans and ended up staying at a pretty basic motel in Vale, about 26 miles from the Canyon.  It was actually really comfortable and made a great base for exploring the area.

After checking we drove down to the South Rim for our first glimpse of the Grand Canyon.

    View of the Grand Canyon from Yavapai Point.

    Glen at the Grand Canyon.  Note the big bag of camera equipment!

    Roberta relaxing on the edge of the canyon.  There were tons of signs (generally ignored) around warning against getting too near the edge.  Apparently there have been a number of fatalities where people have slipped on the rocks and taken a fast, one-way trip to the canyon floor.

    Sunset approaching.

    Sunset over the Grand Canyon.

    The Grand Canyon from the East Rim drive.

    Roberta on the trail down to the canyon floor.  We only walked down for about half an hour or so.  It is about 3 miles down and takes twice as long to come back up as to go down.  Maybe next time for the canyon floor!

        Elks by the road after our last visit to the South Rim.  At least we think they are elk.  Ken - can you confirm this identity?!  (click to contact us)

The Journey to the North Rim

The North Rim is much more remote than the South and it is a journey of about 200 miles to get there from the South Rim.  The drive takes you through some very interesting country though and is definitely worth taking.  You can actually get to Las Vegas this way, but the day we drove through, that road was closed due to a forest fire.

    Sign demarking the Navajo Nation reservation.  It is a large area that straddles four states.  In the middle is the Hopi reservation - a state of affairs that has lead to a lot of land disputes between the two groups.

    The desert on the way to the North Rim.

    The forest fire.  We got a lot closer than this and all the roads west towards Vegas were closed off.  Apparently it was started by a neglected camp fire and would probably take a least two days to get under control.

    The Vermillion Cliffs.  Unfortunately this photo suffered a bit with the smoke from the forest fire.

    The bridges over the Colorado River.

        Photos of the Colorado from the pedestrian bridge.

The Grand Canyon - North Rim

This place is beautiful.  I would have liked to have stayed here for days and days.  It was much less crowded than the South Rim.  In fact, while we were there we could have counted the people we saw on both hands.  We walked out to Bright Angel Point, where these photos were taken.  It is an amazing walk, right out above the canyon itself.

    The canyon on the way to Bright Angel point.

    A view of the canyon from the edge of Bright Angel point.

The Grand Canyon - from the air

We also took a flight out over the canyon on our second day there.  The plane had been specially modified with big picture windows.  Unfortunately we were sitting near the wing, so it was difficult to get photos without propellers in them!

    The Colorado from the air.

    Fish ridge in the canyon.

Sedona

Thanks to Avril's recommendation, we took a drive down to Sedona.  The town is in an amazing location!

    Red Rocks near Sedona.

    Stream at the Red Rocks State Park.  It is an amazing riparian environment in an arid land.  Apparently, this kind of ecosystem used to cover 10% of the state but now covers less than 1%.

    More spectacular rock formations near Sedona.