Sunday, September 28, 2014

In Which I Hike In and Out of a Really Big Hole

So, we went to the Grand Canyon on Saturday. It was my first time there. Nancy had been before, but not for several years. It's a place that I knew I had to visit when we moved to Arizona, and I'm glad that we got it in so quickly! We met up with some of our friends from Utah up there, and four of them and I hiked down to the Colorado River from the South Kaibab trail and back out via the Bright Angel trail. It's no rim to rim, but it was almost 17 miles! That's the longest hike I've ever done, and I'll tell you what: It was kind of rough. I went into it figuring I'd have little trouble and that it would be pretty easy. Unfortunately, I underestimated the size of the giant hole in the ground that is the Grand Canyon. You really can't understand the huge scale of the thing without going there. It's almost a mile down from rim to river, people! That's a lot! I knew that going in, but I didn't realize how much "a lot" was. It's seriously a lot. But, overall I had a great time. I was saying as I was climbing on the final switchbacks out of the canyon (those switchbacks took me more than two hours, by the way) that this was probably only something that I needed to do once. Now that I'm a little removed from the experience, I wouldn't mind doing it again. It was certainly worth it, I'll say that. The Grand Canyon is fantastic. At any rate, here are some pictures. The order might be a little wonky because they uploaded funny.



That's a pretty sweet-looking slot canyon down there.



Our friend Grant. We were still at the beginning so we were all still in a good mood.

As you can see, I was definitely still in a good mood.













Going through the tunnel onto the bridge.
River!


I took this picture on the way back up, because that rim was the level to which we were headed.

Cool waterfall.

Most of my face with the cool waterfall.

Made it! That trekking pole was only helping me stand a little. Okay, fine, I was barely able to stand without it.

Like I said, it was needed.
View from the Bright Angel Trailhead.
Here's our Google track from the hike!

While I did that, Nancy went on a few short hikes with our friend Jessica who just had a baby. Nancy wasn't feeling very good so she decided not to come on the big hike with us. Here are a couple pictures of that:





The next morning we got up and headed back to Phoenix. Nancy and I had a Sunday school lesson to teach. We took a few pictures before we left, though.

Here's this picture of me holding a baby.

And here's this picture of me and Nancy with a baby.

Then we went to get one last look at the canyon, because we decided we needed a couple picture with the Grand Canyon.
Otherwise, what was the point of going all the way up there, right?




Nancy and our friend Sarah.
 So, that was our first trip to the Grand Canyon. It was awesome! I would gladly go again. At any rate, that's about all I've got for now. This is Captain Danger out.

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