We awoke before sunrise anticipating hiking down to the river and back in one day. We mounted our bikes and took off. Of course none of us knew where we were really going, so we were unable to find the trailhead we wanted to hike down. We made it to the rim in time to watch the sunrise, totally awesome! We decided that it was too late to make it to the start of the trail we wanted and decided to just hike the Bright Angel Trail as far as we could and then turn back. Since it we were no longer in a time crunch, people decided they wanted to get breakfast at the cafe. We spent time in there gearing up to go and then finally took off.
The trail we were on was a maintained path. There were bathroom and water stops every couple miles. When I got down about 3 miles to the second stop, I decided I would rather spend my day wandering around the rim than hiking in the canyon, so Casey and I turned back. The remaining group hiked out to Plateau Point, another 4 or so miles total I think. I got to the top around 10 and was pretty hungry. Unfortunately, they didn't start serving lunch foods for another hour, but we decided to just sit in the restaurant and wait for it to be time. We told the waiter we were fine with waiting for the kitchen to be ready, but he still came back every 10 minutes or so and apologized for not being able to serve us yet. We spent the afternoon wandering around the various places on the rim, and rode the bus around for a little while to see other parts of the park. We got back to the campground just as it began to rain. Most of our tents weren't the most water proof, so we moved things into safe places and then took cover in the van for a nice nap.
I had been to the canyon before, but it was many years ago. For me, the initial experience of seeing the canyon wasn't as dramatic as it was for some people, but the fact that we got here by bicycle from Maine will make it a memorable experience for sure.
No comments:
Post a Comment