Our first ‘glimpse’ of the Grand Canyon was at 12:30pm on November the 30th 2013 but all we saw was thick impenetrable cloud! We waited around for an hour or so in the castle gift shop thinking this can’t be happening but there it was… still. We continued on to the visitors centre as was becoming customary for us. No National Park visit would be complete without a stop at the visitors centre to watch the usual movie from five years ago, read about some geological phenomenon that cause the parks landscape and of course to check the weather report. The weather report was bad and you could tell the Rangers were getting pretty sick of telling people that they didn’t know when it would clear, we enjoyed watching them though.
That evening we checked into the campground had a shower and dinner then drove over to the 7pm Ranger talk. The evenings talk was about the night sky and a few general things about the park, it was presented by a Ranger who had worked at the park for 40 years! He begun by saying he didn’t know when the weather would clear so don’t ask, but… typically sunrise gives you the best chance of clear weather he mentioned. During the talk we learnt a bit about constellations and what not, but it was kind of strange we were the only young people there and the large majority were much older than us. We felt a little dorky but when the Ranger told us that tomorrow night they would be showing the premiere of a new Californian Condor documentary we knew we would be back for more. Back at the Campground we discovered some guys had put up a tent in our paid camp site and claimed that they had told the Ranger they were moving but he must have forgot. We gave them the benefit of the doubt and moved to another one. All we needed was a place to park after all.
Awake at sunrise we piled on some layers and drove over to the edge. This time we saw what is called an inversion layer… Apparently this is a super rare event that we were lucky to see and it made for some unique photos. But we still weren’t really seeing the canyon we had hoped for. Frustrated we actually left and drove forty minutes out of the park on our way to Vegas saying we would return when the weather got better but we soon decided that was a stupid idea. We headed back and spent the day walking along the side of the canyon checking out all the info sites and hung out at the El Tovar Hotel styled like an old hunting lodge. The weather stayed about the same all day.
Awake at sunrise we piled on some layers and drove over to the edge. This time we saw what is called an inversion layer… Apparently this is a super rare event that we were lucky to see and it made for some unique photos. But we still weren’t really seeing the canyon we had hoped for. Frustrated we actually left and drove forty minutes out of the park on our way to Vegas saying we would return when the weather got better but we soon decided that was a stupid idea. We headed back and spent the day walking along the side of the canyon checking out all the info sites and hung out at the El Tovar Hotel styled like an old hunting lodge. The weather stayed about the same all day.
We knew that the Hermit Road had just opened to public traffic rather than soley shuttle buses as the start of the winter season so we planned to stealth camp down the road that evening. Finally at sunset the clouds dissipated and we saw our Grand Canyon it was like seeing your friend who usually only wears sweat pants put on a hot dress. We suddenly realised how beautiful it was! Will snaped off a few photos and then we milled around the Dodge waiting for everyone else to leave before cooking dinner. This is when we met the Kiwi family we are now staying with in Seattle. They saw the New Zealand on the back and within minutes offered to have us come and stay, shot guys! At 7pm we went to the Condor movie which we really enjoyed and learnt about the terrible effects lead bullets are having on the Condors who accidentally ingest them in killed game and end up with lead poisoning.
The inversion layer was back in the morning but we no longer minded we knew what majesty lay beneath it. We pulled on our hiking boots and left Scout in the car with some water to begin our 19km round trip into the canyon. We were rewarded with stunning new views as we descended below the cloud layer. After lunch we realised three hours had passed and Scout might need to pee soon so we missioned it back up passing everyone else like we were in some sort of race. When we got to the car Scout was fine I however was red faced and pooped. We hit the showers one more time and stopped to look at a huge heard of Elk before leaving the Grand Canyon behind us.
Rochelle & Will
Rochelle & Will