Bright Angel Birthday to Rim Retirement

We rose early on Gorm's 59th Birthday to shuttle to the Bright Angel Trail offering epic views of the canyon on an out and back trail with rest areas and water. We opted for the 3 mile out and back. Mountain goats wished us well as we reached the 2nd to last switchback on the steep 1.5 mile uphill return.
From there, we boarded the Hermit's Rest shuttle and walked part of the Rim Trail from Powell Point to the Abyss, known for lack of crowds and close proximity to the edge. The Abyss offers dramatic views with a sheer vertical drop of 3,000 feet.
We returned back to camp for a delicious cold beverage then headed to the Yavapai Tavern for birthday dinner, cocktails and creme brulee. I discovered there was a mechanic open 7 days a week just 1.5 miles from camp so we drove over to see if they could fix the leak. They said they couldn't help us nor could any of the mechanics in neighboring towns they provided numbers for. The Rialta has a VW chassis but most VW mechanics can't handle the 21 feet camper part. We returned to camp and hopped on shuttles to continue our adventures on the Rim Trail headed all the way to Hermit's Rest at the end and hiking back. My brain was screaming danger on many sections of the trail (see Gorm's video footage below), but the views could not be beat.
We shuttled back to camp to bundle up as the temperature drops quickly after sundown. We had some snacks and packed a backpack with Veuve and cups to head to the Kaibob side for sunset. There were only a handful of people at Yaki Point compared to the thick crowds near the visitor center. We hiked out to our own point popped the Veuve and cheered Gorm's retirement, our Brother's birthday's (Erik's is May 3rd and D.C.'s May 4th), and the majesty of Mother Nature.
We befriended a young man from Madrid so we could share the amazing pics we had of him sitting at the point below us.
That ends the Grand Canyon portion of our trip. Next up the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest. The ViKing's musical selection, Songs and Stories, Guy Clark

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

And so it begins

Image
I woke up this morning at 6:15 a.m. around the time my alarm usually goes off. I rolled over, refusing to get up before 8 a.m. on the first day off in my 7.5 month sabbatical and the 5th day of Gorm's retirement. We are spending the next few days packing the RV and cleaning the house up for the sitters before a several week trip starting with west coast Phish tour (Seattle>Portland>San Fran>L.A.). After tour ends, we head off on a 4200 mile adventure through some of our most gorgeous National Parks: Date Place 4/28-4/30 Joshua Tree 4/30-5/1 Lake Havasu State Park 5/1-5/4 Grand Canyon South Rim 5/4-5/5 Holbrook / Petrified Forest 5/5-5/6 Chimney Rock Dispersed Camping 5/6-5/8 Great Sand Dunes National Park 5/8-5/10 Black Canyon of the Gunnison South Rim 5/10-5/12 Free 5/12-5/14 Mesa Verde 5/14-5/15 Canyonlands National Park 5/15-5/17 Arches Goblin Valley and Segoe Canyon 5/17-5/18 Capitol Reef Grand Escalante national monument - 1 hour detour to mystic hot springs 5/18-5/21...
Read more

Hiccups Say Head Home

Image
We've reset the transmission a few times since our trouble in Santa Fe, and it worked when we had any hiccups. Unfortunately, after Ogden, Reba (our 1995 VW Eurovan Rialta) wasn't interested in any gear after 3rd. Gorm looked at me stressed and said, "we're going home, we'll hit these parks again another time." We were under 700 miles from home, so I canceled all of our remaining camping reservations and we headed towards Seattle. We could rarely break 50 in 3rd so it took us several hours to reach Boise. We had a HarvestHost reservation there and camped peacefully overnight. Our plan was to hit another HarvestHost in Ellensburg Sunday at a brewery. Sadly after gassing up in Pendleton, we lost 3rd too. We managed to exit the highway and roll into a parking lot. There was a dead dear with only the legs recognizable desicating on the barbed wire fence...We called AAA and asked for a tow. After 3 hours of no help, we started Reba and drove in 2nd 7 miles to a ...
Read more

California Dreaming

Image
After an amazing hometown Phish run in Seattle, we hopped into Reba, our 1995 Rialta. The odometer was at 48,000 when we hit the road for an overnight at our friend's Juan and Kat's house in Portland to see the first Phish show there since 1999. We had one day free to make it to the Tuesday show in San Francisco 635 miles away. Mt. Shasta greeted us as we crossed into California. We overnighted at Beehive Dispersed Camping with our friend Seth about 8 hours into the drive...Reba takes time to make it over the passes. A gorgeous spot on a lake, especially considering the free price tag. In the morning, we drove another 4 hours to San Francisco RV Resort. It was essentially a parking lot a 20 minute Lyft from the city, but the waterfront view from our window would be hard to beat. We grabbed a delicious vegetarian lunch Wednesday with our friend Billy and the harbor seals came out to greet us. The Wednesday show in San Francisco was my favorite of the run. A real burner. We did w...
Read more