To the Grandest of Canyons
Trip Start
Jan 01, 2012
1
8
23
Trip End
Mar 26, 2012
Where I stayed
Williams Arizona, Arizona
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
The next morning we tried to take it easy on the sightseeing – our first day for a while with no National Parks on the agenda – we thought we were in the clear. No such luck, in Navajo country every bit of land is spectacular whether or not it has a ‘National Park/Monument/Attraction’ status tagged to it. We swung by the dam at Glen Canyon on the edge of Lake Powell (the second largest man-made lake in the US, for you fact finders). It was a warm up for Hoover dam which is located at the opposite end of the Grand Canyon.
We then took in the ‘horseshoe bend’ of the Colorado River, a natural phenomenon where the river becomes almost circular, just a short trek off Highway 89. The cool shape and the deep red rock made it pretty much my favourite site to date. The grandeur of the landscape mixed with the extreme calm makes you see what made the Native Americans so damn spiritual! Soon afterwards I was spotting armadillo-shaped clouds in the sky. Next stop was Lee’s Ferry and the start of the Grand Canyon. In the summer this spot is invaded by adventure seekers looking to raft down the Colorado River (it’s where the kayaking bits of ‘Into the Wild’ were filmed). In January we only had to share the beauty with a handful of fishermen and a couple of chipmunks. We picnicked on the banks of the river and then marvelled at the boulders that had fallen down the cliffs thousands of years ago and now look like giant mushrooms.
We arrived in Flagstaff full of anticipation – an actual town, with streets you can walk along. Surely a massive change from what we’d experienced up to now, places where you drive from door to door – walking is unheard of, even the trip from the hotel reception to your bedroom door is driven. However, whilst being in this part of the world in January has enormous perks when it comes to appreciating the natural beauty – no crowds, and temperatures that allow you to walk around without the risk of heatstroke – these same pros turn to cons when it comes to city life. In short, though you could see Flagstaff has many charms in the spring and beyond, on a Monday afternoon in Jan it was cold and deserted.
We headed off to the Grand Canyon early the next morning, taking in a scenic drive through the mountains, listening to Kaff Country FM (‘I love my red cup’ and ‘she’s wondering what life’s like out there’) and spotted a coyote crossing the road. Whilst the sheer awesomeness of the scale of the canyon struck Manu immediately, our last National Park took a little while to grow on me. Being such a big deal, the crowds were bigger than the other places we’d been (though still relatively tiny) and perhaps I was suffering from ‘rock fatigue’? That said, by the time we’d reached the far end of the Canyon and climbed the viewing tower, looking back over where we’d been yesterday, it had won me over.
Looking down the snowy trails we saw a few mad people coming up the Bright Angel trail, the most popular one to go down to the river – usually done by mule (although the mules are hibernating at this time of year) and that takes at least two days to do the return trip. Trying to trek down a 1-mile vertical drop seems to be very serious business – judging by the 250 people that need to get rescued every year and the occasional death. After lunch and an in car snooze, we decided we still couldn’t get enough of the rock action and hung around for sunset. Pretty, pretty, pretty.
After dark we headed to our Motel in Williams on Route 66, had some good ‘home cookin’ in the only open restaurant in town (a theme we assume won’t be continued in Vegas and LA!) and now we’re on the road to Sin City (via an Ihop, of course).
