Unfolded Maps

‘People fall into the Grand Canyon all the time’, a friend told me when I mentioned my family was planning a trip there.  ‘That’s crazy’, I thought.  I mean, how can you not see the thing – it’s so BIG!  Well, here’s the deal.  You can get some lovely shots of the canyon from famous yet safe spots like the terrace of Bright Angel Lodge above.  You can also get some shots of you and yours along the designated paths like the Rim Path.

However, a selfie that appears that you’re right at the edge of the canyon can look a lot cooler.  I get that.  Still when traveling with my nephews I felt I had to set an example no matter how much I enjoy the innate coolness of being ‘the world’s greatest aunt’.   Consequently, I have no photos of me perched along the edge of the canyon for this blog post.  I’m enjoying the blog but I also figure ‘She who keeps ledge lunacy at bay lives to travel another day’.

That is not to say I didn’t observe quite a bit of ledge lunacy on my visit:

But enough of the lunatics, let’s talk about the canyon.  A popular way to see it is the Rim Trail that starts at the Bright Angel Lodge (where the mules down to Phantom Ranch start out from) and continues west to Hermit’s Rest.  There are many shuttle buses along the rim so it’s easy to get from the Visitor’s Center in the village to Bright Angel Lodge where you can catch the red line all the way to the end then start walking back.

This is exactly what our group did.  Along the way we had some lovely views of the canyon including the Colorado River.

Each turn of the trail revealed yet another breath-taking view.

If you’re lucky you can also see some of the wildlife that lives along the edge of canyon.  This female elk was grazing along the Rim trail close enough to touch.

She kept pace with me and the reason for this mysterious behavior was revealed when I finally got in front of but not between her and her new children.

After our hike we were disappointed to discover that the ice cream shop at Bright Angel Lodge closes at 5:00 on the dot which meant a lot of ravenous hikers got turned away.  We fortified ourselves with chocolate from the gift shop instead then got on the shuttle for a sunset tour.

The sunset tour from Bright Angel covered the same ground we had walked earlier but the main advantage was a driver/guide who had a lot of knowledge about the canyon as well as a private ride back to the Village when the crowds were waiting in long lines for the free shuttles once the sunset was over.

Our guide took us to a section of the rim called The Abyss and from there we enjoyed an amazing show.

Conditions at the rim can often be extremely windy but we had such a perfect evening that even the guide got his camera out.  Our luck held as rain fell in the distance creating a misty effect on the canyon below while we stayed high and dry at the edge of The Abyss.

And no one fell off.