In October 2019 I had the unexpected opportunity to tick off some items on my bucket list. The Grand Canyon has always been up there as one of the wonders of the world to see.
My daughter and I were up very early one Thursday morning to catch a 06:45 am flight from Wellington to Sydney. After a few hours wait in SYD we boarded a Qantas A380 for a long flight (15+ hrs) to Dallas(DFW), another wait there before going on to Flagstaff. We arrived at our hotel in Flagstaff around 36 hours after getting up in Wellington - and it was still Thursday!! (Coming back to New Zealand, we skipped a Monday.)
Our first excursion from Flagstaff was a short ride up to the Lowell Observatory.
This observatory was financed and built for Percival Lawrence Lowell who predicted the presence of a planet beyond Neptune.
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| The telescope Percival used in his search for Pluto |
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| The business end where the photographic plate were mounted. |
Unfortunately Lowell died in 1916 having not discovered the planet he predicted to exist.
It was Clyde Tombaugh who finally made the discovery of Pluto in 1930.
The following day we had a tour booked with Canyon Country tours to the Grand Canyon. Glenn picked us up from our hotel and set off but made a detour on the road up to the Snowball ski field on the side of Mt. Humphries (the highest point in Arizona). Being October, the aspens were in their full fall (autumn) colours.
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| Golden aspens |
Moving on we next stopped at Tusayan, one of the gateways to the Grand Canyon National Park on the South Rim.
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| Thumbs up for me to tick an item off my bucket list! |
My first sight of the Grand Canyon is, to say the least breath taking! Eventhough I'd seen photos, words failed me to describe my feelings at this truly magnificent geological formation.
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Hannah and I ready to get our cameras busy.
(Glenn our guide had mine for this shot.) |
Being so high at this point we were amazed at the clarity of the air and that we could see Mt. Navajo, 140 miles away! The North Rim in the photo below is around 28 miles away.
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| Mt. Navajo on the horizon at the right, 140 miles away. |
Most view points give you a 1800 view this huge canyon, all I've managed here are a few shots to give you an idea of the coloured formations and what to expect, should you go there.
The Colorado River has been busy for the last 2 billion years carving down into rocks that are now about 5,000 feet below the plateau of the South Rim.
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| Spot the tree in the cleft of the rocks, Colorado Rover in centre. |
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| Kolb Studio |
The Kolb brothers opened a photographic studio here in 1904 which they operated until 1976. In 1911 they successfully navigated the Colorado River which really kicked off the tourism industry. Now their studio contains exhibitions and films of early expeditions on the river. It is also an access point to trails down to the river, 5,000 feet below!
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| The watch tower |
Last stop of the day was at the watch tower. From the above photo you can see the cloud had built up during the day. This hinted at the possibility that the "golden hour of light" might happen. We were not to be disappointed.
One of the many highlights of the day was the sunset at the tower before we left to go back to Flagstaff via Cameron.
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| Sunset at the tower |
Glenn, our guide for the day, told us that were were extremely lucky in that such sunsets don't occur like this very often - maybe only 20 decent ones per year.
Next day was a trip out to Horseshoe Bend and Antelope Canyon. Arizona part 2 is here now.
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