Grand Canyon part 2

We woke up Sunday morning, packed our gear, and got ready to descend into the Grand Canyon with everything on our backs. Before we began to hike, we saw a small herd of elk on the campgrounds and stopped near them. It was wonderful to watch these enormous, fearless, and seemingly gentle animals nuzzling through the snow to find food right there in front of us. And then we headed to the Canyon. We took the South Kaibab trail, about 6 miles long, down into the Canyon. With heavy packs on our backs, this downward hike had us all hurting – muscles, knees, etc. But it was amazing! We started off in snow. Yes, it was snowing as we climbed down from the top. The temperature grew gradually warmer as we descended, so the snows turned to light and intermittent rains, and our jackets went eventually into our packs as our bodies heated up from the effort and rising temperature. We saw some amazing views. In fact, we stopped for lunch in one of the most amazing sights ever. I hadn’t thought about what it would look like once I was down inside the Grand Canyon. But once I was down inside, I felt as though I was looking up at beautiful mountains! Near the top, the redish rock was more exposed, and as we descended, more herbs grew (sparsely) and the canyon walls began to appear more green. And at the top were dustings of snow. It was simply gorgeous.

 

We were exhausted when we got to the bottom early in the afternoon. Exhausted and sore. And we had nothing to do. We hadn’t brought books, or even cards. So we set up camp. It was raining, so we all crowded into one of our tents. And we ate some oreos. That was nice.

 

I woke up a half an hour later, or maybe an hour later. We got out of the tent, but even that simple action required some effort (because of the soreness). We hobbled around the camp, finding out information about what we could do the next day. We also went down a path, where Daniel saw a great opportunity for rock climbing and took advantage of the opportunity. Not much else happened. The day ended. We went to sleep. It rained.