Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona

We got to the Grand Canyon late so we decided to turn in and have a long day. We stayed at the Yavapai Lodge in the park. It was convenient to the restaurant and the shuttle stop. The Park has a free shuttle service that goes all over the park. I would recommend riding it because there are certain places you can't park (we learned this the hard way). We ended up walking an extra mile to South Kaibab trailhead from where we had to park. 

We took the shuttle to the Bright Angel Trailhead on the South Rim to start our day. The weather was perfect. The first sight of the Canyon was amazing!  I was worried about Curtis because he has an adverse reaction to heights.  But he did great! There were a few times he told me I was close enough to the edge.

We walked the South Rim for about four and a half miles. We took a few hundred pictures along the way.  The layers of colors in the Canyon were really beautiful. 

We hiked to Ooh Aah Point on the South Kaibab Trail. It's one mile down with some scary switchbacks. It didn't bother me, but I was really worried about Curtis.  But he told me to focus on the trail and he would be fine.  Ooh Aah Point is the first point on the five mile hike down to the Colorado River.  They don't recommend hiking down to the river and up in one day because of the elevation and temperature changes.  

             That is one of the switchbacks with a steep dropoff.

The views from Ooh Aah Point are stunning. We rested and ate a snack before making the climb out. The climb out of the Canyon was pretty hard. It was very steep. We stopped several times and I got winded a few times. But we felt accomplished.  I was really proud of Curtis for conquering his fear of heights.  We laughed about the saying here: Hiking in is voluntary. Hiking out is mandatory!

We planned to finish the day with Sunset at Hopi Point, but again, we found out you can't drive there. So we missed it. After walking almost ten miles, we were both tired. So we called it a night.