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| Riding Mules Down the Bright Angel Trail; Grand Canyon, AZ |
www.dennismook.com
We spent the day at the Grand Canyon. The temperature when we arose was 20 degrees F. Just a tad cold. However, the temperatures warmed up pretty quickly and wasn't uncomfortable as we walked around the rim of the canyon. It turned out to be another cloudless, but cool (read: just right) day.
Vance wanted to walk down Bright Angel Trail, which leads to the Phantom Ranch at the bottom of the Canyon. That would be 10 miles down and then there is the problem of getting back up. Vance, the reasonable, intelligent and wise man that he is, decided that he would walk to the second rest stop and then start back up. That would be 3 miles down and 3 back up.
Dennis, who is obviously, more reasonable, more intelligent and wiser, said "Have fun good buddy!" There was no way that I was walking down a three foot wide trail with cliffs hundreds if not thousands of feet straight down at an altitude of 7000 ft. above sea level. I'm a sea level guy so I told Vance that I would walk with him down about 500 vertical feet, take some photos of him, then head back up to walk the Canyon Rim Trail, which I did. On my way back up, the riders on mules met me, so I moved to the inside of the trail and made some images as they approached. The signs on the trail say to move to the inside if you encounter the mules. I did. By the time the third mule was passing me, he was brushing up against me and I was already hugging the wall. the fourth mule was coming right at me, and brushed up against me also. I was attacked by vicious mules on a dangerous trail in the Grand Canyon. Now that is a story I can heartily embellish and tell my grandchildren! Not that I would embellish much...
Vance left about 8 a.m. and we decided we would meet at the trail head of Bright Angel Trail at 12:30 p.m. He headed down and I headed west.
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| Life Threatening Precipice Next to Rim Trail; Grand Canyon, AZ |
I walked the rim trail, about 3 miles out, making photographs along the way. The views were spectacular but there were some times the trail was right along the edge of the cliff. One slip and I would have been history--or a blip in history. I managed not to fall over the edge (I'm sure to the dismay of some.....) and, after reaching a point where the buses could take me back to Grand Canyon Village, got on one and rode back. I walked around the Village and enjoyed my time while waiting for Vance to arrive back at the trail head.
Right on time, I saw Vance with a huge smile and sigh of relief as he reached the top of the trail. He has every right to be proud of his accomplishment as for a guy as old as he is (I'm talking really old compared to me. LOL), He did great!
We headed over to the El Tovar Hotel for lunch and enjoyed a couple of good sandwiches. Afterward, we weren't ready to leave the Canyon, so we hopped a tour bus and took the Red Line Bus all the way to its terminus at Hermit's Rest, stopping in almost every scenic stop along the way to photograph. One interesting note, we did see some rafters heading right into rapids. The photo here was taken about 5 miles from the rafters. I was really pleased with my little Olympus OMD E-M5 and Panasonic 45-200mm lens for allowing me to capture and heavily crop this photograph while retaining resolution and sharpness. Five miles! Not bad for my little Micro 4/3 camera.
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| Rafters Getting Ready to Shoot The Rapids on the Colorado River at the Base of the Grand Canyon, AZ |
After we reached the end of the line, we road back to the Village. By that time it was 5:00 p.m. and we both were tired. We drove back to the hotel, cleaned up, then went out to have a couple of salads for dinner.
The only driving we did today was from the hotel to Grand Canyon Village and back-12 miles.
Tomorrow, we leave the area, head south through Williams, get back on old Route 66 and continue our journey west. Enjoy!
Thanks for looking.
Dennis Mook
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