Day Six: Grand Canyon, AZ

Today has definitely been the highlight of the trip thus far....

At 7 this morning Matt and I made our way to the park... Our plan was to hike a 2-4 hour trail and then come back up and hang around the park... We like everyone who enters the park had to have a pic around the sign... They actually have a parking lot just for the sign... Guess lots of pics are taken there huh???

The trail we chose was called Bright Angel Trail... The entire trail is 12 miles... We, being the inexperienced hikers chose to go 1.5 miles down to the first rest stop, then return 1.5 miles back up... Believe me... THIS WAS PLENTY!!!!!!! I thought I was gonna die coming back up...but man was the trip worth it... We had amazing views and met some fun people along the way.

Several places along the trail had natural tunnels like the one below... The provide some nice shade from the heat.

Below you'll see a few pics of Matt along the trail. He was the brain today... I was a little more adventurous than I normally am. Matt kept cautioning me to be careful when I wanted venture over the edge.

Below are a couple out of about 60 pics of the various views we saw... There is no way to put them all on here...

There were lots of these little squirrels along the way and they were not afraid of us at all... This pic was taken with no zoom!

I wanted to ride the mules down so bad, but I was too fat... You have to weigh less than 200lbs. It would have been the way to because they went all the way to the plateau. You'll see a pic of that on down. Several groups of them came down our trail as we were hiking... You just had to get out of the way... of the mules and their poop!

The next few pics are of me along the trail... I was being crazy today... Guess the canyon just made me relax and have fun and not worry about splattering my guts all over the canyon if I fell... Honestly... every pic you see was risky but not super duper dangerous... I am not that stupid.

This one was the first one I did... When some mother saw me do this she started fussing at her son not to watch me...

This one looks scarier than it was. It was a HUGE rock along the trail, and all I did was prop up on it and take a pic from the back!

This one was a bit risky.... I had to climb down and then out to it.... It was a great view though!!

On the way back up the trail... Matt and I climbed out on another rock to take a video... Let me know what you think!!!

The next 2 pics below were views of our trail from a different vantage point of the canyon.. You can see just how far we were down in there...

Remember I said you would see the plateau... Here it is... Our trail goes all the way out to the end. Since it was 12 mile long...uhhh we didn't do it!!! There was this one "macho" guy who said he was gonna tackle it...We had just got back to the top... He had 1 water bottle and no gear... He said the warnings were for really fat people... I told him I wouldn't be so sure..... Right after he left we read a story about a NY City Marathon runner who died of heat exhaustion and dehydration half way down because she wasn't prepared for the strenuous trail... Man it was hard!!!

These last 3 are from a view in the park called Hopi Point.... you have to ride a tram way out to the end to get there... It was a cool panoramic view of so much of the canyon.... We finally got to see the Colorado River from there too.

This is my favorite pic of the day.... 2 best friends... on the best trip ever!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Day 6 Stats:
Mileage: 7 miles
Drive Time: 10 minutes
Gas: WE DIDN"T HAVE TO BUY ANY TODAY!!!!!!!!!