The Grand Canyon

Our stay in Desert Hot Springs California where we have been visiting family for the past few days was hot and windy.  It was in the 90’s during the day and the 70’s at night. It was actually too hot for us and very uncomfortable. We were looking forward to our next stop; The Grand Canyon.

The trip was a two day, 400 mile journey with the wind constantly blowing. It was coming from the south, a direct cross-wind.  I had to work hard at keeping the Land Wanderer in control to be in the middle of my lane. When we reached our campsite,  the wind continued to dog us with gust shaking the Land Wanderer to the concern of bringing  in the slide-outs and not destroying the slide-out canopies. By late evening, the wind subsided to a breeze with the temperature dropping to “COLD”.  The overnight wind chill was at 17 degF. What a contrast for us.  We broke out the winter clothes. We by-passed the park in January when we were coming west because we thought it would be warmer on our returned trip in March.

We pick a really great week to be here (being sarcastic). It is Easter week, better known as spring break for schools. Again we are fighting crowds and traffic. It was EXTREMELY busy with family and college kids. It is to the point, there is no parking space available if you come after 10am. So we scrape the frost from the Tacoma windshield by 8am and headed to the park. We still had to wait in-line at the entrance.

The park has a great rim trail and hugs the edge of the south rim. We took two days to hike that 13 mile trail. The trek was a little difficult and dangerous but we took our time and sure-footed our way through. It was an experience that we will never forget. Denise kept saying “WOW”, so our wow factor was pretty high. Hiking the rim gave us a very special viewing that we wouldn’t have seen otherwise.

From what we saw, most people just wanted to see the canyon and take pictures, kinda like Chevy Chase in Vacation at the Grand Canyon scene, “Ok we seen it, Let’s go”.

There were many signs warning people about the hazards and stats for time past of people getting hurts and doing stupid things.  It was something like 250 helicopter rescue operations per year. At mile 2.0 of our trail, we did witness a helicopter with a basket hauling someone out.

Park Signs:

Over 250 people are rescued from the canyon each year. The difference between a great adventure in Grand Canyon and a trip to the hospital (or worse) is up to YOU. 

I took over 200 pictures. It was a lot of fun. Here are a selected few of the pictures I took of our excursion:

We are staying:

Grand Canyon Camper Village, Grand Canyon.  We paid $37.65/night.  We had 50 amp electrical, water, sewer and wifi (not very good).  It is a gravel parking lot with close sites. It’s ok for what we were doing, visiting the park.

Our campsite is about at the same elevation as the rim of the Grand Canyon, ~7,000ft.