Grand Canyon

The name says it: Grand Canyon is big! What it doesn't say is that it is hot. We drove to the canyon from the north rim and not the typical south rim.

We decided to go for a 3 day hike down to the Colorado river. The first day we only had to hike down 1200 m elevation in 7 miles, the second day we hiked to the river and back to camp (14 miles and 500m elevation, first down and then up) and the third day we hiked out.

The Grand Canyon, that's where we are going.

We started our hike at 3 pm since it wasn't that hot anymore at this time and 7 miles down should't take us too long.

benz

Our trail

There were lots of those plants. Once they bloomed the whole plant dies.

Kerstin hiking through some caves.

At some locations the trail was quite exposed.

We got to camp at around 7 pm or so. It was still hot, around 95° F. We only put the mosquito net of our tent up since it was so hot and we were pretty sure it wouldn't rain. It didn't cool down much at night but I think we got a couple of hours of sleep in. Since we knew it is only going to be hotter the next day we got up early to escape the heat as much as we can.

Next morning we hiked further down and we stopped at this amazing waterfall to have a break. It was nice and cool here.

There was a path behind the waterfall.

We also saw some wild life. I think it was more afraid of us than we were of it.

We got closer to the Colorado and it got warmer and warmer.

Good to see that somebody inspects those bridges.

After about 3.5 hours we got to the Colorado river. There was a massive suspension bridge to cross it since you could also hike down from the other side, the south rim which is more popular.

And that is the river which carved out the Grand Canyon.

More bridge pictures.

There is actually a second bridge just 500 m upstream. Not too sure why they have two bridges there.

Nice that you don't need a tower here for the cables. Saves a bit of money.

To get to the second bridge you had to walk through a tunnel.

Hey Frenchie, that is going to be you soon.

There also lived a bunch of people here a long time ago, some remains are still there.

Pretty impressive how they built the first bridge.

Since it was damn hot we went for a swim.

There is also a small cabin and a campground. We hung out for a little while and had some lemonade. They have to get everything there by mule which takes about 4 hours. One mule can carry up to 70 kg. The prices are not too expensive considering that.

After heaving a relaxing break we hiked back up through the heat. I think the temperature was around 108° F but we had to get back to our tent. It was already 3pm.