USA 2005

Friday 29th July 2005 - Grand Canyon Day 2

We started the day off nice and easy. That said, we were still up at about 6:30! Martin made coffee for Marina and himself to help kickstart their sleepy systems into life. We all then went off and had showers. When we got back, Martin made french toast on the trangia and more coffee and hot chocolate. We then spent some time writing postcards, updating this diary and playing card games at the picnic table, generally relaxing until lunchtime came around.... at which point... we had lunch!

After lunch we went to the Yavapai Observation Station for the Ranger talk on the geology of the Grand Canyon. We had some time to spare when we arrived, so we looked at our guide book and maps and talked about our plan for Utah.

The ranger talk was really interesting, just like the talk on condors. We learned that over 100s of millions of years, various natural forces had made the canyon what it is today. These included deposits of various types of sediment, put down by the four different oceans that have covered the Colorado plateau over the ages, the major role of the Colorado river, dropping almost 14,000 feet over its length and making the major contribution to the canyon's depth and the force of rain and the general collapse of the canyon's walls over time, which have generated the 10 mile width of the canyon.

During the talk, the weather had changed from being hot and sunny to being very dark and stormy, with occassional flashes of forked lightening.

After the ranger talk, we drove a little further east to the Canyon View Information Plaza to pick up Jack's Junior Ranger certificate and badge. Martin nipped across the road to the rim trail and took some photos of the canyon in quite different weather and light conditions.

Next, we drove east along Desert View Road to the observation point and market at Desert View itself. After a snack and a coffee we went up the Watchtower to check out the views of the Colorado River.

After a fun-filled time cruising the car park at Desert View, looking for state license plate slogans (yup!), we drove west and stopped at Navajo Point and then Lipan Point. The idea had been to watch the sunset from there, as this was a recommendation in our guide book. Unfortunately it was still very dark and stormy looking (though dry) and so we gave up on this idea in the end and headed back to camp.

Click on the photos for full size versions

The weather was stormy with thunder and lightening. A very different Grand Canyon from the day before. The light and shadow on the rock looked wonderful.