Four-Bit Room Goes Camping: April 17

Sunday, April 17, 2011 - Ranger Talk, Bright Angel Trail & Canyon Sunset

We awoke in our spacious new campsite and we were ready to spend the day soaking up as much of the splendor the the Grand Canyon as possible. Pictures cannot capture the magnitude and grandeur of the canyon, nor can memories hold onto those magical moments of actually experiencing the canyon, so the best you can do is enjoy the moment(s) of being there up close and personal taking it all in.

We started the day with another Ranger chat - GeoTalk. This talk was held outside in an amphitheater overlooking the canyon. The perfect setting for a lecture. The audience consisted of families with many young children, so the level of the talk spanned all ages. The gist of the presentation was how the canyon was created. For simplification, the ranger said all you have to remember is the word "DUDE" to explain the Grand Canyon's formation. This acronym stands for Deposition, Uplift, Downcutting and Erosion. Layers and layers of deposits formed the various rock strata of the canyon. Then the earth's internal pressure cause the whole plateau to be lifted up and slightly tilted. The force of the Colorado River over millions of centuries caused the downcutting to create the canyon (and still continues). Erosion due to the forces of the weather - wind, rain, ice, snow - ever so slowly makes the canyon walls wider. Pretty cool geology lesson!

After feeding our brains, we strolled for a mile along the rim of the canyon where there was a timeline of various rock specimens and displays to reinforce the concept of the formation of the canyon. By now the day is beginning to get rather warm, so a hot dog and ice cream luncheon seemed to be the perfect repast.

Next we wandered over near Bright Angel Trail and did a quick tour of the Kolb Studio, built in 1904 by the two Kolb brothers, who made their living photographing the mule riders descending the trail down into the canyon. The Studio overhangs the canyon's rim and has incredible views, besides being a current day art museum. It amazed us that these brothers worked so hard running up and down into the canyon for water and to hurriedly take pictures and process them for these mule riding tourists. Not an easy job back-in-the-day.

A ranger suggested we walk down a little of Bright Angel Trail to see some petroglyphs, which we never found. The trail down wasn't too bad, but it was somewhat narrow with a steep drop-off. I loved the sense of going down into the canyon with all the rewarding views. I easily walked down about a half-hour's worth, which is a very minor section of the trail, but the walk back up to the rim left me breathless. I cannot imagine the hike back up from the canyon floor! Poor mules and poor Kolb brothers.

We hopped on the shuttle to ride out to Pima Point to see and "hear" the Colorado River. The River is at least a mile down, so the rapids must be deafening at the canyon floor. This bus tour gave us another overview of the size of the canyon and various canyon perspectives.

The river snakes through the canyon floor.

We can hear the river a mile above the canyon, so these rapids must be wild

Back at the campground, poor Don had a chore awaiting. We were still having problems with the passenger side rear tire on the camper. A new wheel and tire awaited us from the manufacturer in Las Vegas, but we were not sure we would make it there without a flat along the way. Better safe than sorry. Don switched out the spare, once again, which had a little more tread than the current tire.

Our final plan for the day was to watch the sunset over the canyon at Hopi Point. We had planned this for last night, but the campsite move negated that idea. The weather was slowly deteriorating and the wind picked up. The previous night would have been preferable, but you go with what you can. We took wine in drink mugs, our Crazy Creek chairs and jumped on the shuttle. Finding a good locale near the rim to watch the sun go down, we bundled up and had a "sit." The clouds were blocking the sun and we were laughing at the wild winds which wanted to blow us out of our chairs. During the final minutes of the sun receding below the horizon, the clouds parted! We had a spectacular show of rock and sky colors, thus paying us back for our efforts to savor our final tourist view of the GRAND Canyon! Tomorrow we are Las Vegas bound.