Incredible! Fantastic! Words alone can’t describe the Grand Canyon so I won’t even bother to try. Instead, the pictures speak for themselves. The picture below gives you some idea of the 'lookouts', upper left corner, and how close they are to the edge of the canyon walls. This is a very small lookout point - most of them are quite a bit bigger.
Paulette and I woke up to blue skies and sunshine this morning – but, it was rather cool here, only 11C. We took off about 9:30am, with Molly in tow, for the 1 hour drive to the Grand Canyon about. When we arrived at the gates, there was already a 4 lane lineup to get in – but, it only took us about 15 minutes and we were on our way. The temperature at the South Rim was down to 6C and their was a cool breeze too!
Our initial stop was the main viewing site at the Grand Canyon – Mather Point. The first view of the Canyon is absolutely breathtaking! There is a very nice asphalt pathway that winds along the south rim from Mather Point up to the Village. About every 100 yards, there are ‘lookout points’ on huge rocks that actually jut out over the Canyon. It’s quite safe though as there are cement stairs down and steel guardrails along the edges of the viewpoints. Still, it can be kind of scary when you get out there.
And then there are the yahoos! The ones who just have to go over, or around, the guard rails and see how close they can get to the edge without killing themselves. They seem to be oblivious to the fact that one slip, a gust of wind, and they’re over the edge.
Worse than the yahoos are some of the parents who also allow their kids to run around extremely close to the edge. We even saw some parents telling their kids to get a bit closer to the edge so they could get a better picture. Parents seemed to have no problem with their kids ignoring all the warning signs to stay on the paths! Pretty crazy!
The Mather Point walk turned out to be about 6 miles! By the time we got back to our truck, poor Molly was exhausted – not to mention Paulette and me. It didn’t seem like that long of a walk as we made frequent stops at the viewpoints to have a look and take pictures – lots and lots of pictures.
From Mather Point, we drove 20 miles along the Southern Rim and visited all of the scenic stops including Yaki Point, Grandview Point, Moran Point, Lipan Point and finally Navajo Point. At these locations, there were no great hikes – just park in the lot and walk a few yards to the lookout. The views from each site were all different but no less spectacular. The Colorado River, which winds through the Grand Canyon, is hidden in some canyons because of the steep walls. In others, the river is visible and the color is really beautiful – sometimes a deep blue and other times it seems green.
