We moseyed down the road from the Desert View CG to the Visitors Center, about 25 miles, stopping at the many pull outs to check out the view. They all come down to the angle you're getting on the awesome chasm, perhaps with a unique detail. The first few were nice and we had them to ourselves. Then it was like a switch flipped, and we had crowds. A tour bus disgorged its innards, another group commandeered one viewpoint for pictures of each of themselves. Fortunately a good view could also be had elsewhere.
After a quick tour of the Visitor Center we did a short mile hike for more views, then a longer bike ride of views, much of it on rocky double track through gorgeous woods. And Arizona has Butterscotch trees! Stick your nose up against the bark, inhale and imagine butterscotch.
It was on the bikes that we started running into elk. Their bubble of calmness is about 20 feet. We first ran into one on a bike path and we stopped 50' away. But it didn't move. After several minutes we started approaching, and she finally moved to the other side of the trail. As we passed, she stayed about 20 feet away. She definitely wasn't running through the woods.
We also became aware of how many Grand Canyon tourists are international, with limited knowledge of how to translate "on your right" (since they're well centered on the trail and already fighting oncoming traffic), and the total lack of spacial awareness of any pedestrian as they randomly stop, walk backwards, or just a jump to the left (maybe they were playing Time Warp on their headphones). It seemed that American tourists were the minority based on the conversation I heard, though it may be that Americans are just more taciturn. Or do people talk more when they know no one else can understand what they're saying?
Grand Canyon is awesome. It is more impressive than any other canyon I've ever been to. The layers of rock are incredibly varied, and I'd really like to understand the myriad geological processes that made up this "erosion". But at some point, i found myself seeing another incredible Vista, and thinking, one (four) more picture(s). Maybe every visitor should be allotted a fixed number of images they can take away, Sharon and I both need to cull our photo output. And I'm tired of taking chasm crap. Concentrate on the twisted trees, and the rest of the beauty.
So on our bike ride we stopped by the campground to see if our site was ready. Oops! It seems our reservation is for a different south rim campground, one 5 hours away. We were fortunate that they had a site for us for one night. Tomorrow may be a challenge.
Our site is minimal, the road widening enough to be off, and a generous amount of desert to pitch a tent on. It works.
The best part of the big NPs is their bus system, keeping people out of their cars. We walked to the front of the campground, waited a couple of minutes for an eastbound blue bus, and from that bus we walked directly to the westbound blue bus that took us to the beginning of Hunter's Rest. Then we rode multiple red buses out to the westernmost point on the rim we can get to, stopping along the way to check out the vistas and hiking some, and picking up another red bus. With 8 stops, we got to ride maybe 5 reds going up. On the way down we didn't get off til the bottom, then quickly crossed over to get on the blue bus waiting. We were lucky, the slower folk had to wait for the next blue bus. And it dropped us off right at the campground.
By the time we got home to Ernie, I was spent. And Sharon found new energy and prepared the best meal of salmon patties, grits, and a salad of our last avocado, fresh tomatoes and mozzarella. Oh so good. And of course we had to go for a walk around the campground for an another mile on her Garmin tracker.
Pictures from the South Rim of the Grand Canyon are at https://photos.app.goo.gl/4pFCRG8XLEYCwaph1
No comments:
Post a Comment