America Grand Canyon

On Tuesday we went to Grand Canyon to walk in the Canyon. We went on the South Kaibab Trail. We saw some rock squirrels and birds, but not a lot else.  The top of the trail is at 2,195m and we went to Ooh Aah Point which is at 1,965.  The trail follows an exposed ridge line.  I felt scared when we went down as I was a bit worried I might fall off the edge and the path was a bit slippery at times with the small gravel on it.  Occasionally there were strong gusts of winds and it whipped up it stirred up dust.

We used the free shuttle buses to travel round parts of the rim, stopping and looking to see down into the canyon.   We also walked along part of the rim and were able to see the Colorado River at the bottom (but only from some parts) and also the bridge at the bottom of the South Kaibab Trail.  We went to the Yavapai Geology Museum to listen to a Park Ranger talk called Geo-glimpse, which was about how the canyon was formed.

After dinner, we went to the Shrine of the Ages to another Ranger talk.  Ranger Ron was pretending to be Captain John Hance who was known as the greatest liar of all time, and was the first white person to live at Grand Canyon.  One of the stories he used to tell was to look out for men, especially young men, but old too, as one day there was a young man at Grand Canyon strolling about and he was telling Captain Hance that he had the newest of everything.  The newest thing in the world were on his feet - Indian soled rubber boots! (the boots had rubber soles on them).  He said his boots had big grippiness, and could grip on to rocks.  He started to demonstrate the grippiness by leaping from rock to rock, and then, on his last jump, he jumped right into the canyon!  "Ahhhh", he screamed on his way down, and he landed on his Indian rubber soled boots and "Ahhhh" he screamed on his way back up!  Once he was back up, Captain Hance tried to grab him, but "Ahhh" again, and his bouncing continued all night.  In the morning, Captain Hance's friend said "I can't take this any more" and Captain Hance asked "What are you going to do about it?" and he replied "I'm going to shoot him".  As the friend was about to take the shot, Captain Hance smacked the rifle out of his hand and then said "Grab me my lasso".  Once he had his lasso, he swung it around and the next time the young man bounced up, he lassoed him right out of his boots and onto safe ground.  So, they didn't shoot the young man, but they had to shoot the boots as they kept bouncing!  I really enjoyed the talk that Ranger Ron gave, and laughed practically the whole way through it!

When we left the evening talk, it started to snow.  The flakes were very tiny white balls which only melted when we touched them.  I don't think there was enough to settle.

We stopped in for hot chocolate at the Masick Lodge, then headed off to bed.