A Visit to a Seventh Natural Wonder of the World Runner Up

 

Viewing the Grand Canyon from anywhere but at the rim is not that impressive because you can’t really see until you get there. But boy when you get there, it can take your breath away. As we stood ooohing and aaaawing at our first sight, a couple joined us and within few seconds the lady was bawling her eyes out, she was so overcome by the beauty of the Canyon. What a Cry Baby!

 

As described in Wikipedia, “The Grand Canyon is 277 miles long, up to 18 miles wide and attains a depth of over a mile (6,000 feet).  Nearly two billion years of Earth's geological history has been exposed as the Colorado River and its tributaries cut their channels through layer after layer of rock while the Colorado Plateau was uplifted”.

 

What took nearly 730,000,000,000 days to create took us 1/365,000,000,000 of that time to explore.   Not a huge investment of time for a finalist in the new Seven Natural Wonders of the World as voted by people on the internet, most of whom have never even been to the places they have voted for, because if they had, the canyon should have at least made top ten.

The voting is still happening, so who can say. Currently the Amazon Rain Forest is #1. Ho-hum!

 

We visited the South rim which is open year round and is just south of the North rim by about 10 miles. The south rim sits at an elevation that varies from 7,000 to 8,000 feet. As the Grand Canyon is in that other country and as a gesture of international good will, I will quote all facts and figures in feet.

 

 

We spent our first day exploring the rim trails and getting our selves acclimatized to the altitude before making our way down into the canyon the next day. We were amazed, as the sun set, the canyon walls changed colours.  Very cool!

 

 

Day two saw us make our way down into the canyon.  We were told to arrive early to the trailhead, with the intent to get down the trail before the donkeys.  Donkeys are used to pack stuff down into the valley, including people.  It was not early enough.

 

 

 

The downy part of our hike was wonderful with views that amazed every step of the way except for the steps necessary to avoid the donkey pooh.  

 

 

 

 

 

Coming back up, the donkey pooh was the least of our problems. Sucking up the thin oxygen kept us busy.

 

 

 

 

 

 A grand end to a grand visit.