1000 Feet Down and a Serious Fault

This was our first full day with zero flying. We woke up at 5:30am in order to make it to the Grand Canyon for the sunrise. The only problem was that there was no sunrise due to overcast skies. Instead of seeing the sunrise, we went on a quest of epic proportions. We walked west on an icy trail for approximately 5km. Along the way we saw mule deer, ravens terrorizing the sky, and amazing ridges of the 7000 foot deep canyon. Being the adventurous guys we are, we decided to venture off of the icy path, seeking blockbuster ledges and picture opportunities. On a couple of occasions we may, or may not have, felt like soiling our pants. On our walk back to Bright Angel Lodge we started a snowball fight, and played some ice soccer which helped pass the time.

After lunch we exploited the bus system and made our way to the East end, where we began our descent down the canyon. We worked our way down the path which was part ice, part snow, part dirt, and part mud. Our spirits were high as we weaved our way down into the big hole. There were many breathtaking photo opportunities (facebook photos to last a lifetime) and we also enjoyed finally being able to take layers of clothing off for the first time this trip.

After our 2 hour descent we finally made it to what we thought was the halfway point, took a quick break, and started our venture back up. Needless to say, it was much easier coming down, than going back up. We all started to get more and more cranky, hot, and thirsty. After sucking on a lot of snow, and taking a couple short breaks, we made it back to the top. Surprisingly, it only took us 45 minutes to get there, but that was all walking..very few pictures. At the start of the trail we reviewed the trail map where our spirits were completely crushed. We found out that we had really only descended 1000 feet, or 1/7 of the canyon depth. In total, our round trip experience weaving back and forth was about 10km.

When you add this total to our round trip of 10km in the morning, we walked about 20km in one day! That's a lot of canyon that we saw... but really, it barely scratches the surface!

We all made our way back to the hotel and looked forward to a relaxing evening. Once again, we ate supper at McDonalds :) Unfortunately the hot tub at our hotel was not in operation, however we did not give up. While Aaron D rested in our room, the rest of us were determined to get into a hot tub one way or another. We asked the staff at the front desk where we could fulfill our desire and were directed to a neighbouring hotel. We snuck by the front desk and made our way to the atrium where the hot tub was waiting. We spent about 45 minutes there and came back to our room and vegged for the rest of the night. One by one we all fell asleep and looked forward to sleeping in for the first time!