Grand Canyon arrival

You may know that it's approximately 375 miles from Vegas to the Grand Canyon.  You may not know, however, that it takes 7 hours to drive that distance.  Even though the speed limit is 75 mph most of the way.  Stupid road construction.  At one point, we travelled 7 whole miles in 55 minutes.  For hell's sake, I can practically run that speed and I'm slower than Internet Explorer on a dial-up connection.  To be fair, we did spend about an hour of that time at the Hoover Dam, and another 30 minutes having some lunch, but still...

Oh well, we made it.  To this.  Amazing.  Construction?  What construction?  

Ok, now we need to rewind 7 hours...

We left the hotel at 8:30 am, hit Starbucks for caffeine & a breakfast sandwich, and headed out of Vegas.  It was less than 45 minutes before we arrived at the Hoover Dam.  I'll admit that I wasn't especially gung-ho about seeing the dam, but I was glad we stopped.  It's actually quite fascinating to think that they built this behemoth in 4 years.  In the 1930's.   All the art deco ornamentation was pretty cool, too.  

The Memorial Bridge & the Colorado River

Us with the dam.  

Lake Mead - see the high-water mark on the banks? 

The rest of the 340 miles to the Grand Canyon was less than exciting.  The desert & scrub landscape is actually quite beautiful, but doesn't change dramatically.  And then there was the road construction.  We finally made it to Bright Angel Lodge , where we are staying for the night, at 4 pm.  As always, Andrew took care of booking accommodations, so I was completely surprised and delighted to discover we had our own little cabin!   Could it get any more Dirty Dancing than this? 

Our porch.

Inside the cabin.

Self explanatory.

Enough about the cabin (though it truly is adorable), and on to the real reason we're here...

I literally gasped when we first saw it. 

The man who took this one for us was a real pro.  He talked us through the process of how he was aiming downward to capture the Canyon, while still ensuring you would see the horizon.  Wow! 

After we wandered around a little bit, we dropped off our duffle for the Mule Service.  For a mere $70 (each way), you can have the mules carry up to 35 pounds of your crap to the bottom and back up.  Inside our duffle is warm gear, clothes and shoes for while we're at Phantom Ranch, extra food for the hike back up, toiletries, etc.  Our day packs we'll hike with weigh nearly 20 pounds, and every ounce matters (to me, anyway).  We'll each carry more than a gallon of water, food for the day and first aid gear 7 miles down and 9 miles back up, so we are convinced that $140 is money well spent!  

Now we're in our cozy little cabin with all our gear packed and ready for an early morning.  Here's the plan:  breakfast in the Lodge at 6 am, then drive to catch the shuttle bus at the Backcountry Information Center and leave the rental car in Parking Lot D.   We'll then hike about 7 miles down the South Kaibab Trail to Phantom Ranch.   We'll stay at PR Wednesday night and Thursday night, then leave there very early Friday morning to climb back out via Bright Angel Trail (about 9 miles).  While Bright Angel is longer, it is not as steep as Kaibab and has more shade, so it's recommended for the hike out.  Assuming we can haul our asses up that 9 miles (which, by the way, has an elevation gain of almost a mile), we'll then spend Friday night back at Bright Angel Lodge.   There are rumors that there is a spot about a mile from Phantom Ranch where you can get cell phone access.  I imagine that requires Jupiter to be aligned with Mars, and that all members of your party are standing on one leg.  In other words, you'll have to wait until Saturday to see photos from the bottom.  Wish us luck and we'll see you then!