Grand Canyon Trip

The trip down the Grand Canyon was amazing.  I've never seen anything like it.  It was a very powerful reminder of the beauty of the natural world.  On the way to the Grand Canyon, we (my mom and I) stopped in Sedona, which had huge red rocks rising everywhere.  The town has a famous golf course, which made me wish I played golf; I'm sure it would be awesome to have that kind of scenery around you.  Here is a Sedona pic:

We then drove up to the Canyon and checked in for the mule ride (which would start at 7am the next day).  They gave us a water carrier, which I think is called a wine skin, a big rain coat, and some string to tie our cameras, sunglasses, hats, etc. around our neck.  They also weighed us (awesome) because you had to be less than 200 lbs. to ride the mule.  Here's a pic of everything attached to my mule (named Zug Zug) the next day.  

So, we were used to 100 degree weather in Phoenix, and when we arrived at the Canyon it was in the 40s.  So, we then bought very stylish Grand Canyon long-sleeve t-shirts to wear on our ride.  We also discovered that we had left our hats in Phoenix, so we had to frantically buy hats at a gas station at like 11pm the night before our trip.  The hats we bought looked more like gardening hats than cowboy hats, so just overlook that in the pics :)

We woke up the next day and gathered at the corral, haha.  Then we were given our mules.  We were told to keep our mule close to the mule in front of us or else a "mule run" could occur, and we had to use our "motivators" (aka whip) if the mule wasn't going fast enough.  The first step out onto the Canyon literally took my breath away.  At first, I was just terrified of the height and the fact that the mule walked literally ON THE EDGE of the canyon, but that wore off within a few minutes, and I could enjoy the view.  Here are some pics:

We made two stops on the trip.  One at Bright Angel campsite, where we got water, had a bathroom break, and actually got sprayed off with water (it got really hot towards the bottom).  We also stopped at Plateau Point for lunch, and ate overlooking the Colorado River.  We went a total of 6 miles down on the trail.  On the way back up we had to stop every 10 minutes to rest the mules.  When we stopped our guide, Anslen, told us about the history of the trail, the different points along the way, etc.  The whole trip took around 8 hours, and even though I was sore and tired, I really didn't want it to end.  

Once we made it back to the top, we had a beer in the lodge to celebrate the fact that we didn't fall off the canyon, and then we drove back to Phoenix and flew out the next morning.  

Here is a link to an album with all of the pics if you're interested:

http://picasaweb.google.com/rosssg1/SedonaAndTheGrandCanyon?feat=directlink