Flight to Phoenix was crowded but on-time and uneventful. Lydia blew through the "Zits" book that Amy gave her about half way through the flight; she and I entertained each other by reading the "Duty Free" and "Sky Mall" magazines and making snarky comments about the various products on offer. The Phoenix airport is immense; it took us almost an hour and a half to collect our luggage, shuttle to the auto rental place, and finally get packed into our car. Weird scene at the rental car office: young hipster woman, heavily accessorized with I-phone and small stroller suitcase thing containing two "micro-dogs" (every so often the dogs would poke their heads out of the case and wiggle around; very entertaining to watch); she was friendly and mellow at first, but then proceeded to get into a loud argument with the rental clerk (some sort of problem with her credit card, apparently). We were pretty tired when we finally made it to the airport hotel.
In the morning: breakfast, then a drive (couple of hours) north to Sedona. It was raining lightly when we set out (very peculiar weather for AZ) and continued to drizzle as we headed north. Very stark desert landscape -- tumbleweeds, sagebrush, and cactus.
Sedona is beautiful-- you can see right away why people come to visit -- very striking red rock formations, rolling hills, canyons, and mesas. We stopped at a park ranger station and picked up a parking pass and some maps, then decided to do a short hike before lunch. We picked "Cathedral Rock"; the trail is very bimodal -- first section is relatively level and well-behaved, then the last half mile is nearly straight up along the rocks. There were sections where you're basically just following a sort of seam or crease in the rock face.
Amy hiking on the first section of trail:
A bit wet on the trail:
View of Cathedral rock from the trail below.
Partway up the steep section.
Ethan strikes a pose...
Up near the top of the saddle between the main sections of Cathedral Rock:
View from below again (having come back down).
Amazing views. We started around 10:30 and finished up around 1:30 (everyone was very hungry indeed after that). Lunch at the "Barking Frog" cafe, which turned out to be a good choice. We checked into the hotel around 3; at 4pm I took the kids to go see the latest "Hunger Games" movie while Amy relaxed back at the room. We had dinner after that at a pizza place.
Amy made a good pick for the hotel; the rooms are decent, it's reasonably priced, and it has a nice heated pool and hot tub. The crowd in the breakfast room is very eclectic; fair number of hiker and biker types (old and young), families from overseas, and families from the USA.
For our second day in Sedona we picked a trail north of the main part of town; staring on Jordan road we drove up to the trailhead and then did the "Brins Mesa" loop, which was about six miles or so. Lovely hike-- slow climb up into the kills and then out onto a mesa; cool air, almost windless, sunny and clear.
Views from the trailhead:
Looking back towards the main part of Sedona:
On the trail...
Partway up the trail to the mesa:
This is kind of an interesting shot-- over to the left the shiny things on the hillside are actually wet patches, where water is leaking out onto the rock faces. It is another illustration of how porous and non-absorbent the soil is here: water just runs right off as opposed to sinking in.
We've reached the top of the mesa:
Getting close to the northernmost part of the hike (half way):
Time for some goofing around...
Yucca. These things are all over the place:
Hiking south again now.
We decided that the little stone pillar at the base of the wall had a vaguely Sphinx-like quality to it:
We stopped at the "Seven Sacred Pools" (interesting basin-like formations at the bottom of the canyon):
Poolside yoga:
Tricks you can play with the camera: "Say, that's a big tree..."
... or is it really all that large? In fact this photo below gives you a bit more of an accurate measure:
We had the trail to ourselves; didn't see another person until we were two thirds of the way through the hike.
Here we are at the "Devil's Kitchen" sinkhole. The sinkhole is very recent (1989); apparently it made quit a spectacular noise when it fell in.
Lunch after the hike at "Sedona Memories", an earthy-crunchy sandwich place. Amy and I had veggie sandwiches (almost too big to eat), Ethan had roast beef, and Lydia had a Rueben (hers looked the best). After lunch we did some window shopping in the downtown section of Sedona, which is touristy almost to the point of ridiculousness. Back at the hotel Lydia and I visited the pool and (more importantly) the hot tub -- ahhh! After some downtime we all eventually piled in the car and went exploring again. We had an extended frisbee session at one of the local parks. After that we drove up onto the mesa that houses the local airport, then had a drink at one of the restaurants there. I had hoped that we'd be able to watch the sunset, but in fact we mainly wound up watching the very busy bartender (the sunset wasn't all that interesting anyhow, since the sky was too clear). Dinner at a local Thai place; food was excellent; we lucked out I think. In the evening Ethan finished his book while Amy, Lydia and I watched "Argo" on DVD. Amy had seen it before, but it was new to Lydia and to me.
Video from the end of our second day in Sedona: http://youtu.be/gsyWDt1SycM
Sedona third day: up early, breakfasted, then drove down to the town of "Oak Creek" (mile or so south of Sedona) and rented mountain bikes. The rental place ("Sedona Bike and Bean") was perfectly positioned near a set of trails that runs north alongside two huge rock formations, "Bell Rock" and "Courthouse Butte".
Amy and Lydia opted for a shorter ride; Ethan and I took a longer and more technical ride ("Llama" to "Little Horse" and then back on "Bell Rock Pathway"). Fantastic area to ride in -- the trails are interesting and the views are spectacular. The one downside was that I fell off the bike at one point and landed awkwardly on the fingers of my right hand (turns out that broke one of the bones in the third finger, although at the time I assumed it was just a very bad sprain). I was able to finish the ride, however (lots of huffing and puffing to keep up with Ethan). We turned in our bikes around 10, then hustled back to the hotel to shower and get packed up.
On the way to the Grand Canyon we stopped in Flagstaff to have lunch; we picked the Beaver Street Brewery, which as it turned out has excellent grub (we didn't try the beer). From there we decided to drive into the Canyon via the eastern route-- slightly longer, but it means that you can stop at some of the viewpoints at the eastern edge of the park.
We made our first stop at Desert View. We were surprised to see a fair amount of snow on the ground (more than a foot), which made us a little nervous, but from what we could see of the other locations down the rim, it wasn't snowy everywhere. We climbed the tower and took in the views to the east
and west:
The tower:
Snowy scene:
Drove the rest of the way to the village and got checked into our hotel, the Bright Angel Lodge. The folks behind the desk gave us connecting rooms, which was very nice of them. After unpacking and relaxing for a while, we did some very short exploratory walks in the area, then later on had dinner at "El Tovar", the nicer 'white table cloth' restaurant that's there near Bright Angel. The food was good, and the kids had a couple of sizable desserts, so that put them in good spirits. Down time for the rest of the evening (including a nice soak in the bath -- the room had a nice old fashioned freestanding tub).
Wednesday: breakfast at 7 at the hotel cafe, then we packed up our gear, made sandwiches for the trail, and then trooped over to the shuttle stop to catch the bus out to the trail head at "Hermit's Rest". The bus goes at a glacial pace, so it takes a while to get there, but we did finally make it to the trail head.
We opted for the "Dripping Springs" hike, which turned out to be a good choice. As with all of of the trail heads at the rim, the first quarter mile or so of the trail seems kind of impossible -- you look at how steep the drop is, and it doesn't really seem possible that there is any way down, but yes, sure enough, the trail seems to materialize as you make your way along, usually with a lot of switchbacks and routes cut partially into the rock.
Here is Ethan "photo-bombing" Lydia's shot (not to worry, she will get her revenge later)
Each of the lines in the path is a stone slab set on its side ... the mind boggles at the amount of work that went into it.
Kids way ahead:
First mile or so descended pretty steeply, with a very well-maintained and carefully reinforced trail. This eventually leveled out into a small plateau, and the trail to Dripping Springs forked off to the side. The secondary trail runs horizontally along into a side canyon for maybe another two miles or so. Fantastic hike-- incredible views all around. The Dripping Springs trail was much smaller and less maintained than the Hermit trail, but it was easy enough to follow.
Looking back at the first half mile of the Dripping Springs trail. Can't really make out the trail in this photo, but it runs along a bit above the steep drop-off, on the shoulder of the redwall.
I have discovered that now in my 40's (and soon to be 50's) I have more of a fear of heights than back when I was younger -- maybe something about having kids? What this means is that when I look at my mountain-goat son and daughter standing blithely at the edge of a cliff with a 500-foot drop-off, my stomach drops out and I go all woozy. Annoying, but what can you do? The second half of the Dripping Springs hike also has some trail sections that pushed my buttons -- places where if you had slipped and fallen to the side a few feet you would probably have had it. Solution: keep your eyes fixed firmly to the trail, or what there is of it.
View back into the main canyon.
We stopped for a water break here.
Amy taking in the view.
As with our previous Sedona hike, we had the trail pretty much to ourselves, which was great-- very cool/cold air, sunny skies, and very little wind. Also almost no birds or insects, which seemed kind of strange.
The actual Dripping Springs is indeed true to its name: a cul-de-sac in a red rock canyon with an overhang and water dripping down from the ceiling. Somewhat more odd was the fact that there were plants growing out of the roof as well (one can only guess at how they managed to take root there). We had our sandwiches and fruit and polished off a bit of chocolate and dried mango.
In this pair of shots you can see the trail a bit better. First shot with no zoom:
Second shot zoomed in all the way. You can see the trail, and just barely you can make out Ethan and Lydia walking along.
I thought this was an interesting rock:
Looking back at the main hermit trail. You can't see it at all, but it's there.
On the way back up to the Hermit's rest trailhead we did finally see a couple of other hikers. One nice guy pointed out a place where there were some fossilized footprints in the rock, which was pretty cool. Small lizard of some sort? It was hard to tell. We finished our hike at around 2:15.
This is from the main trail looking at where we hiked to Dripping Springs (which is at the very far end of the side canyon).
Signs at the top of the Hermit trail head. The G.C. has quite a few of these sorts of signs, although I think most of them are geared towards the summer hiking crowd (we each took about a liter of water, and that was easily enough for the 6.5 mile hike).
We finished around 2pm, then hopped back on the shuttlebus for the return leg.
In the afternoon I decided that I should probably have a doctor look at my finger, so I drove over to the clinic they have as part of the main village. After much waiting around and poking and prodding (as with all American medical establishments, it's impossible to have your fingers x-rayed without having all of your "vitals" taken, e.g. height, weight, pulse, blood pressure, temperature, medical history, yada yada). After much back and forth I was eventually told that I did indeed have a broken finger, and was splinted up without any delay. Phooey.
Thursday: Happy Thanksgiving! We had our usual 7 am breakfast at the hotel (although this time there was a big table in the corner with a large group of Amish tourists, or at least that was what they looked like from their clothing and grooming). After getting packed up we decided to try the South Kaibab trail; so we drove and then took a shuttle to the trail head to the east. South Kaibab is one of the main ones down into the canyon; it apparently has regular teams of mules that go up and down, so it is wider and more heavily reinforced. It's also rather fragrant in parts due to the mule leavings (one is given quite an appreciation for how impermeable the clay soils are in AZ).
First section of the trail was snowy/icy and almost comically steep -- basically a series of switchbacks set into the cliff. From there it levels out a bit, although still going down fairly steeply.
Looking up at the start of the trail head (you can see the switchbacks pretty well):
Amy on the trail:
Awesome views down and to the west. First stop was the so-called "Ooh Ahh Point", an overlook where you can see clearly to the east and the west.
Photobomb revenge!
This shot shows a representative piece of the trail. Not lovely, but very solid.
Next stop after that was "Cedar Point", an area where the trail opens up into a small mesa and you can wander around a bit (this is at about the 1.5 mile mark). Amy decided to turn around here (her back was hurting from the previous day's hike, and she didn't want to overdo it).
Very cold on the trail-- it was hard to get warm even with the hiking (at least on the way down). Quite a few other hikers too this time around; about a third of them were carring tents and other backpacking gear and presumably heading for one of the campgrounds down closer to the river. Lots of international visitors as well -- we heard German, English, Japanese, and Russian (and probably others) along the trail.
Skeleton Point video: http://youtu.be/BpCo-EhRJlQ
After the hike we made it back to the lodge without any troubles, and spent some time relaxing. I went into the cafe/bar area in the hotel to order a cup of tea; while waiting for it I got to listen as a small group of fashionable-looking Japanese tourists tried unsuccessfully to get the barman to sell them an entire bottle of whiskey (he was having none of that). A couple of hours later after various showers and such we got out our playing cards and board games and wandered around trying to find some sort of lounge or gathering area where we could play. Not much luck-- weirdly, the lodges here don't seem to have much in the way of couches, comfy chairs, etc (?). We eventually made our way back to El Tovar and put our names in, then had a nice Thanksgiving dinner around 3:30pm. I ordered duck this time around; it was tasty, and there was quite a lot of it. We decided to get our desserts to go, which the waiter was happy to arrange.
Lydia and I went on a short shopping expedition later in the PM -- I bought more groceries while Lydia admired the t-shirts (she said she liked the one that said "Free Range Humans").
At around 5:15 we drove over to Yapuvai Point (one of the viewing areas on the rim) and watched the sun set -- it was in fact not all that interesting, I think mainly because the sky was so clear (you need at least a few clouds to produce the nice effects).
Shot before sunset:
Later in the evening we drove to one of the park buildings (oddly named "Shrine of the Ages") and took in a talk by one of the park rangers on the subject of ravens. It was fun-- I learned a few interesting things I hadn't known before (ex: immature ravens, from 1-2 years old, actually help their parents by collecting food to feed their younger siblings). We also learned about how the water supply in the Grand Canyon works. Apparently the source spring is on the north side, and the water is pumped (at considerable cost) from the north up to the top of the south rim.
Friday morning: fog in the canyon-- kind of a cool effect (also made me very glad that we had already done our hikes at this point):
Friday was mostly a travel day. We drove down from the G.C. village to Flagstaff and ate lunch at our Beaver St place again, then headed south a couple of miles to have a go at "Flagstaff Extreme" , a high ropes course set up in a local state park. It was a hoot-- Ethan and Lydia and I really enjoyed it (although admittedly I think I would have liked it a bit better if my finger wasn't in a splint). They give you a climbing harness that has three short ropes permanently attached; two of the ropes end in heavy carabiners, and the other one is capped with a zip-line runner/glider type fixture. The course is self-guided; as you move from platform to platform you are keep yourself clipped in with the two carabiners (when you move one rope the other one stays attached). This is really a much nicer system then having a guide or instructor hovering over you making sure that you are properly roped in. Here are a few shots from the "practice" course:
The course has ladders, platforms up in the trees (quite a ways up in the later stages), wires running between the trees, and various obstacles that you have to get across or around to make you way along. For example, there was one section where you clip yourself to a sort of Tarzan-style rope, then swing down to a cargo net, which you climb up to reach the next platform. It was a good way to break up the day.
After that we eventually made it back to Phoenix and the slightly warmer weather (GC was in the 30-40 range, whereas the highs in Phoenix were in the 60's-70's). We crashed again at our same airport hotel, then went out for a bite to eat later on ("Richardsons").
Saturday morning it was off again to the airport. We had some idea of what we'd be getting in to, but even knowing that it's the weekend after Thanksgiving, the crowds at the airport were a bit of a shock. We did eventually make it through all of the lines, however. Lydia and I headed to gate "A", while Ethan and Amy peeled off and headed for gate "B" (they are going to do a college tour in Palo Alto on the weekend).
Flight back was full but uneventful. Lydia and I returned to a freezing house -- I had wood for a fire ready to go in the fireplace, however, so we were able to stay warm while the house came back to something approaching a decent temp.
All in all, an excellent trip.
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