The Canyon! Part 2: Bright Angel Trail

Grand Canyon National park is different then all of the other parks we have been to.

It's very, um.... developed. And very, almost...urban?

There are so many people (even in November) & so much...infrastructure & the Canyon itself is so imposing that it just isn't really a place people go to hike.

It's a place people go to look. 

Bus after bus after bus of people, unloading at the overlooks just to look, take pictures & go back to the bus.

Many of them were dressed more for a stroll in New York City than a hike thru the woods. ;)

They were also not your typical National Park people.

As a rule, people we have encountered at the Parks are super friendly, encouraging to others on the trail, polite, thoughtful. It's like a brotherhood & people are happy to be in it.

At Grand Canyon? Unfortunately, not so much.

In fact, folks were just plain rude. :(

It was kind of shocking actually.

Even on the trail they didn't move aside for my little boys. In fact several people hugged the inside of the trail & made my little boys pass on the outside of the trail with a mile long drop.

That ain't right.

It was pretty easy to tell the 'real' hikers from the posers tho. The real hikers did smile, and were friendly & thoughtful. 

And the people who worked at the park were ~across the board~ super friendly. It was just those pesky tourists...so be warned. The Canyon is a little ...different.

There are a few day hikes & one we did was Bright Angel Trail.

This is the trail "Brighty" was named for. Y'all remember Brighty right? The little wild burro who lived in the canyon & even went lion hunting with Teddy Roosevelt. If you haven't read about Brighty get your self to the library or Amazon or whatever & get a copy. Any horse loving child knows Brighty because the book was written by Marguerite Henry & she wrote the best horse stories out there.

Anyway for this girl, who read Brighty a million years ago & fell in love with the Canyon, it was pretty dang cool to be on Brighty's trail.

This is also the trail that the mule string uses to get to the bottom of the Canyon. (which played heavily in my fantasy trip to the Canyon but alas, the waiting list is a year out. Gasp. And no little kids allowed so...still on my list.)

See the condor? :)

We, obviously, didn't hike to the bottom but we hiked partway down the Bright Angel Trail. Which is very cool with amazing views & 2 tunnels & some very awesome petroglyphs...

...see?

You also get a good view of the Phantom Ranch at the bottom of the canyon (if you look really hard you can see the buildings of the ranch at the bottom of the pic).

The tunnel from the other side...

and some photo ops...

(candy makes the canyon less scary, hence the Starbursts)

Looking back at the Kolb Studio from the trail.

Stay tuned for marauding mules, the Desert Tower & more ;)

Blessings.