Trek America - Mnt. Val. to Grand Canyon

After our night under the stars we awoke at 6:00am to view the sunrise over the buttes before breakfasting with our Navajo guides. We then returned under the rising sun to our start point at the visitors centre where we were back on the road again to our next destination - The Grand Canyon.

We crossed from Utah into Arizona as we travelled South and when we arrived Emily blind-folded us as agreed so she could lead us to the edge for a 'big reveal' of the canyon. We must have looked like a very special cult as we tentatively stepped blindly in a column, hands on the shoulders of the person in front, to a point when we were allowed to remove our blind folds. The sun pierced our eyes, temporarily blinding us, before we regained our senses to see that a few feet in front of us the world fell away to ravine after ravine into the Colorado river twisting below. Standing on the southern rim, the canyon stretched into the horizon where the northern rim looked back. In sheer size alone it deserves the title 'grand', being a mile down at its deepest and 70 miles across at its widest. Yet it is the spectrum of shapes and colour that make up the canyon which really makes it brilliant.

We toured the the rim near us known as Desert View before heading away to set up our campsite. Unfortunately the campsite had not been reserved correctly by the Trek America office but Emily quickly turned us around to another campsite. We headed back to the canyon for sunset, where we dined on pizza whilst sitting on the rim watching the setting sun changed the colour and shape of the canyon's surfaces.

We returned to camp and quickly all retired to bed as we were all tired from last night's sleep under the stars as well as the knowledge that we would need to be up early tomorrow for our hike down into the canyon.Read more