Wednesday, May 18th – Grand Canyon National Park – South Rim to Vermillion Cliffs, Arizona – Day 97
We woke up in our roadside paradise. The old man in his tent next door had woken up and was actively moving things around. To maximize the day, I had set an alarm for the kids to go to school and got up to make breakfast. Arizona is weird in that as soon as you enter Grand Canyon National Park, the time zone turns to Mountain Standard Time (MST) which is three hours behind Toronto. We have been getting up at 7am to get the kids into class. I use the phrase “into class” liberally since they really don’t want to wake up at 7am for class but class was put in front of them, and they gradually woke up to it. In the future, setting an alarm for 6am seems too early when we are on the West Coast. Today, Aisling’s teacher wanted to talk to her so I had to shake her awake so she would be marked present.
As a special surprise, I showed the kids a decomposed dead horse that was dumped off the side of the road a ways down from our campsite. I had noticed all the Vultures around and when I investigated there was a coyote having a snack. Unfortunately none of the animals were there when I brought the kids back. Great surprise Dad!
The kids participated in class, we ate, cleaned, and packed up and drove 15 minutes to the Grand Canyon South Rim visitor centre for stamps, junior ranger activities and some educational displays.
We had options for what to do and we decided to do the most intense hike while the kids were fresh. The south rim has buses that will transport you around the rim to various hikes and viewpoints. We went on the yellow bus to the South Kaibab Trailhead.
The South Kaibab trail goes into the canyon and all the way to the north rim. Our destination was the first viewpoint, Ooh Aah Point, a 2.8 km out and back trail with 230m of elevation change. The trail starts with eight or nine switchbacks to get you well into the canyon. When hiking down with walking sticks in hand, a group of horseback riders were leading mules out of the canyon, we were pressed to the side of the trail. The trail was wide enough for two-way traffic but there were a lot of sheer drops off one side. John required constant supervision to keep him on the wall side of the trail. After the switchbacks, the trail varied between mild downhill grades and steeper steps. The kids needed a few breaks in shade to power up with Gatorade and gummies. The downhill was easy although we did get some pushback from John. We admired the lookout and then started walking back up. The kids were surprisingly great, several short breaks were required for water, but we made it back up in no time. The views of the canyon were amazing. We could see the trail continue down into the canyon and it looked like a lot of fun. Maybe next time.
To be continued...
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