Can you guess why I posted these two pictures to my blog?
6.28.2007
6.26.2007
Along The Rim Trail
After we ate lunch at the Bright Angel Lodge and perused the gift shop for swag, we took the "tram" down to the eastern end of the South Rim Village and walked along the rim trail back to the western end of the village, which also had the ice cream shop.
We started the hike about three hours after we had finished the Hermits Rest route. It was interesting to see how the canyon had visually changed. At high noon, the colors had seemed somewhat washed out but you could really see the various layers in the rock strata. As we were rounding into early evening, the colors started to become more intense, but the shadows had merged and expanded and now tended to delineate larger features, like mesas and valleys.
Don't Feed The Animals!!!!
So there are signs posted all over the South Rim Village that tells visitors in no uncertain terms that they are not to feed any of the animals. This includes the squirrels and ravens, no matter how cute they look or how far up your pant leg they climb.
None-the-less, Scottland and I get to the oh-so-convenient snack stand at the end of the Hermits Rest Route and find tons of people sitting around feeding tastey little cheeze doodles to an army of squirrels and a flock (a murder?) of Ravens. I couldn't help but walk through the crowd while loudly (yet conversationally) telling Scottland how stupid people would have to be not to see the signs posted everywhere telling people not to feed the animals.
I did get a cool picture of a raven, though.
6.23.2007
The End of the Line
The views from Hermits Rest were all sort of the same, but the plants provided attractive framing for the views of the canyon. After we got to this part of the route, the "tram" turned around and went back to the South Rim Village. We could have stopped at Mojave and Hopi point, but decided we'd rather do other things. It was a good choice on our part to make. Besides, when we started to walk the rim trail at 4 PM, the sun had gotten much lower in the sky and the colors were much more striking.
Pima Point
Looking west towards Hermits Rest and the end of the route.
As Scottland pointed out, after a while the overlooks start to all look the same. I think that's what was great about hiking the rim trail and seeing the other two points later in the day. The experiences were all really different.
Views From The Abyss
I guess it's called the abyss because the angle between the viewer and the colorado river is much steeper, on account of the river bending towards the south rim at this point. These pictures don't really do it justice.
6.22.2007
Powell Point
The cliff/shelf/cliff nature of the walls of the Grand Canyon is a result of layers of easily eroded shale between more resistant layers of sandstone and limestone.
Looking west towards Hermits Rest. Visibility in the Grand Canyon (particularly during the winter) can easily exceed 100 miles. It was 93 miles the day we visited.
Trail Overlook and Maricopa Point
A view of the bright angel fault and the trail down to the bottom of the canyon. Hikers are endlessly warned never to try to hike to the bottom of the canyon and back in a single day. The trail is 12 miles long one way
Views from Maricopa Point. There was a ranger here with telescopes set up to allow visitors to view a cave entrance in the canyon wall where a pair of California Condors were known to be nesting. We saw them flying over head, as well as one of their offsrping. One of them flew close enough for us to see the tracking number painted on it's belly.
The Hermits Rest Route
Riding the "tram" and stopping at the various view points along the Hermit's Rest Route was the first thing we did when we reached the grand canyon. We skipped Mojave and Hopi point and walked from Maricopa to Powell Point. Between Maricopa and Powell is an abandoned Uranium mine that's been fenced off due to high radiation levels around the mine entrance.
Grand Canyon
On Tuesday during our excursion to Phoenix, we drove north to the largest hole in the world, or at least North America. Perhaps the Marianas Trench is a bigger hole. I last visited the park in 2001 but Scottland hadn't been there since he was a very small child.
As usual, the place was just amazing. Before we got there, I told Scottland about my theory that it's the giant auditory nothing in one half of the world that makes the Grand Canyon so spectacular. It's not enough to see the giant hole, it's that you can really FEEL that it's there because sounds just go out and never come back.
Since we were coming up from Phoenix, our visit was limited to the south rim which is where I visited the last time. On that visit I did two thing. (1) I rode this tour bus thing between eight different lookouts over the canyon and (2) got horribly sunburned.
I managed to avoid getting sunburned by slathering myself with SPF 50 (this was a strategy I employed throughout the Phoenix trip to avoid getting burned) and was pleasantly surprised to discover that I could spend 10 hours in the sun of the high Colorado Plateau within getting even a little pink.
The vehicle tour was as cool as I remember, though Scottland was correct in his observation that after a while all the points start to look the same. After the vehicular tour we took a different bus to the east end of the south village and walked the rim trail (about 2.5 miles) to where we had parked our car. I didn't do that the last time and it was a cool experience. Very different from riding from lookout to lookout.
By the time we got back to the car is was maybe an hour and a half until sunset. We had gotten lunch at the Bright Angel Lodge (and discovered that you could rent rooms and cabins at the South Village), hit the gift shop and the ice-cream shop, which helped eat up a lot of time. I wanted to drive back to Flagstaff via the east entrance of the park so we hit a couple of the lookouts you can drive to on your way out of the park.
In particular we hit Indian Watchtower, which has this replica of an old Navajo (I think) watchtower that used to be there. The view from the watchtower is really different from the rest of the south rim, in that it's right at the point where the Canyon curves north. So, in addition to being able to see up the axis of the canyon rather than across, you can also see a long way across the painted desert and can see the canyon of the Little Colorado.
After we left the Indian Watchtower we exited the park and drove through the reservation that abuts it. As usual there were lots of weird little shacks on the side of the road selling trinkets. Scottland particularly liked the one that said "Nice Indians Ahead."
The drive back to Flagstaff was really cool, as we were driving across a relatively flat expanse of grass covered land as the sun was setting was setting behind a big clumping of cinder cones (We were in the area where you'd go to see Sunset Crater), with clouds covering the sky except in the west. The grass had already dried out and gone dormant, so it was brighter in color than the clouds or the mountains and more reflective. All of these things together had the effect of making it feel like we were driving through some enormous miles high cave. It was really cool.
The rest of the drive back was relatively uneventful, though Scottland was really freaked out by the multi-thousand foot descent off the Colorado Plateau on an unlit interstate where the maximum speed is 75 mph. We pulled off the interstate at one point to look at the desert night sky. It was amazing. I've seen the Milky Way before but never as an enormous, solid belt of milky white across the sky. Very cool.
As usual, the place was just amazing. Before we got there, I told Scottland about my theory that it's the giant auditory nothing in one half of the world that makes the Grand Canyon so spectacular. It's not enough to see the giant hole, it's that you can really FEEL that it's there because sounds just go out and never come back.
Since we were coming up from Phoenix, our visit was limited to the south rim which is where I visited the last time. On that visit I did two thing. (1) I rode this tour bus thing between eight different lookouts over the canyon and (2) got horribly sunburned.
I managed to avoid getting sunburned by slathering myself with SPF 50 (this was a strategy I employed throughout the Phoenix trip to avoid getting burned) and was pleasantly surprised to discover that I could spend 10 hours in the sun of the high Colorado Plateau within getting even a little pink.
The vehicle tour was as cool as I remember, though Scottland was correct in his observation that after a while all the points start to look the same. After the vehicular tour we took a different bus to the east end of the south village and walked the rim trail (about 2.5 miles) to where we had parked our car. I didn't do that the last time and it was a cool experience. Very different from riding from lookout to lookout.
By the time we got back to the car is was maybe an hour and a half until sunset. We had gotten lunch at the Bright Angel Lodge (and discovered that you could rent rooms and cabins at the South Village), hit the gift shop and the ice-cream shop, which helped eat up a lot of time. I wanted to drive back to Flagstaff via the east entrance of the park so we hit a couple of the lookouts you can drive to on your way out of the park.
In particular we hit Indian Watchtower, which has this replica of an old Navajo (I think) watchtower that used to be there. The view from the watchtower is really different from the rest of the south rim, in that it's right at the point where the Canyon curves north. So, in addition to being able to see up the axis of the canyon rather than across, you can also see a long way across the painted desert and can see the canyon of the Little Colorado.
After we left the Indian Watchtower we exited the park and drove through the reservation that abuts it. As usual there were lots of weird little shacks on the side of the road selling trinkets. Scottland particularly liked the one that said "Nice Indians Ahead."
The drive back to Flagstaff was really cool, as we were driving across a relatively flat expanse of grass covered land as the sun was setting was setting behind a big clumping of cinder cones (We were in the area where you'd go to see Sunset Crater), with clouds covering the sky except in the west. The grass had already dried out and gone dormant, so it was brighter in color than the clouds or the mountains and more reflective. All of these things together had the effect of making it feel like we were driving through some enormous miles high cave. It was really cool.
The rest of the drive back was relatively uneventful, though Scottland was really freaked out by the multi-thousand foot descent off the Colorado Plateau on an unlit interstate where the maximum speed is 75 mph. We pulled off the interstate at one point to look at the desert night sky. It was amazing. I've seen the Milky Way before but never as an enormous, solid belt of milky white across the sky. Very cool.
6.21.2007
Flight To Phoenix
While flying to Phoenix we passed right over the top of Mt. Rainier, which was pretty much covered in clouds. Except for a little nub at the top. I took a cool picture of the phenomena. It looks a bit like an island in the clouds.
6.19.2007
Phoenix Fest 2007
For the last week of his six week sabbatical, Scottland and I flew to Phoenix. Why Phoenix? Well, mostly because we wanted to go somewhere warm and unfamiliar to either of us. We managed to visit the Grand Canyon, Taliesin West and the Phoenix Botanical Garden. Other than that, we mostly spent time in the pool reading and drinking. I also managed to do some research my book.
The picture is an interesting image of Phoenix and the area to the north of it. It was generated by combining a linear data set from the USGS and an elevation data set generated by some space shuttle mission, whatever that means.
6.09.2007
Moses Lake Triathlon
I managed to achieve one of my major goals for the year today when I completed the Moses Lake Triathlon. Your basic olympic triathlon consists of a one mile swim, a twentyfour mile bike and a 10 K run. A sprint triathlon halves all those distances. The particular event that I participated in was a "family" triathlon, which is a sprint triathlon where the swim distance has been halved again to a quarter of a mile.
Swim Time : 9:28
Transition 1 : 5:32
Bike Time : 55:23
Transition 2 : 0:58
Run Time : 34:33
Total Time : 1:45:56
To be frank, the race was really freaking hard. I managed to complete it and my times weren't abysmal, but the start of the 3K run after the 12 mile bike ride was pretty difficult. Still, I enjoyed myself and I'm planning on doing another one in Mid-September. It's funny how competative stuff like this can make a person. Though my only stated goal was to complete the triathlon, I'm already plotting ways to improve my race time.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
