Leaving Grand Canyon National Park

After of a couple of nights of camping in Mather on the South Rim we struck camp and packed up. We started out day popping into the Grand Canyon Visitor Center.

We hiked about 5 more miles along the South Rim, finishing the entire South Rim Trail, covering 16 miles over 2 days.

We worked our way along the eastern parts of the trail. This gentleman was working on a beautiful watercolor.

"Same, but different" just about everywhere we looked.

We got our first good views of Phantom Ranch Campground. On my previous trek down the canyon, this is where I spent the night. It's a gorgeous cottonwood treed oasis at the bottom of the canyon.

Here's one of the better panoramas of this great slice through time.

And this one is a bit more sublime, burying your mind in the great distances before you.

Kim and I took a moment to reflect on the great Stephen Mather. We came to learn quite a bit about Mr. Mather and his tireless efforts promoting and extending the National Park Service, through Ken Burns documentary, The National Parks -- America's Best Idea.

Century plants blooming just below the rim are quite stunning.

This is a view down the South Kaibab trail, the route I took down the canyon last time. I felt a bit of nostalgia, and longed to return and do this difficult hike again.

I does sound corny, but I mean every word of it when I say that the 18 mile hike down I did in July 2003 to the bottom of the canyon and back up "changed my life." It quite literally changed my perspective on effort, space, and time. When I returned from that trip, I started training for my first marathon, and I've since run a total of 4 marathons (and dozens of half marathons and 10Ks). It was also the baptism of what I suspect will be a life-long interest in distance and back-country hiking and camping (I've since done long/back-country hikes through Scotland, Yosemite, New Zealand, etc.). As such, I enjoyed standing at the South Kaibab trail head and calling this to mind.

We finished our day hike at South Kaibab, caught a shuttle bus back to the Jeep, had a picnic in the parking lot, and then set off, heading east out of the park. We did stop at Mary Coulter's lookout tower about 30 miles east of the village for a "desert view" of the canyon.

The structure itself is quite remarkable, and we climbed the ~75 stairs to the top, for 360 degree views of the canyon and landscape.

There was a bit of rain on the horizon, and the temperature itself had turned quite cool. These were more or less our last views of the canyon. It's quite safe to say this will be a long term relationship, and we'll look forward to our next return.

:-Dustin