Takin’ it easy

Monday June 6, 2011
Grand Canyon National Park

Out running about 7am

and these guys were out too.
What fun!!!

Only 3 in this picture but
there were actually 4 of them

One was hanging behind the others.

A little bit later we found the lady
And she said “Who ME?”
SO funny!!

Back for breakfast and taking care of
some business, reading my friends’ blogs and
just messing around in general.

About 12:30 I decided to get outside
and go over to the West Rim to follow
The Line of Time to its end.

Turns out there were lots more brass
markers for the thousands of millions of years
but no more stone examples.

I started from the transfer point and walked west.
It is a very steep climb so I would advise others
to go to Hermit’s Rest at the end of the red line
and walk back to the transfer stop.
The take home message is do the trail
in the opposite direction of what I did today.

Here’s the view looking back to
Grand Canyon Village.
You can see
The Kolb Studio with El Tovar in the background.

It was uncanny that this trail overlooks
the Bright Angel trail down into the canyon
and we plan to hike that tomorrow.

So I got some good views and good information
on it today without intending to.

Including a map which I’ll probably
wish I’d waited until tomorrow to post.

I’m going to the second “Rest House”
and back before noon but
who knows what David may do.

Here’s a picture of the trail going down
from my spot on the rim trail today.
You can barely see the Grand Canyon Village
buildings on the far top.

All those little squiggly lines are the trail.

Most of my hike was over looks of
the Bright Angel Trail. 
There were some other great views.

And then I came to a barbed wire fence which
really surprised me until I rounded the corner
and saw the information signs about the 13 Years
of uranium mining that had gone on in the Grand Canyon
and the current muti-million dollar clean up of the land
contaminated by radioactive and other hazardous waste

This clean up will go on for far more years than the
mine was in existence and will cost millions of dollars.

It reminded me that we, and our government, often
”approve” things about which we really do not know
the long term implications.

Here is what was visible from the trail.  The clean up
is going on below the rim.  The barbed wire is to
keep foolish tourists away from the contamination.
Not a pretty site but an education for us all.

I ended my hike at Powell Point where there
is a lovely overlook and a monument to
John Wesley Powell who was the first
explorer of the Grand Canyon to descend
the river with his party in rowboats in 1869
and again in 1872. 

I looked for a view of the river at this overlook
expecting that a spot honoring Powell would have
one, but if it was there, I couldn’t find it even in my
binoculars.

At this point, I hopped on the bus going East and
headed back for dinner and an evening
of reading and blog writing.

And an early bedtime to get
up and go back down in the canyon tomorrow.
Come on along!