Just to continue the merry-go-round of seeing the sun come and go, we arrived at the Grand Canyon just in time for sunset. Sadly, we had decided not to stay in the fabulous Flintstone’s themed campground 30 minutes from the canyon in favour of one much closer. This put us right on the canyon’s south rim, with about 500 other punters, for sunset.

Looking to the east, the fading sun cast a warm glow on the canyon.

Looking west (towards the sun) you could see that typical canyon haze and shadows cast by the bends and curves:

And then the sun dipped low.

Arty

I, of course, wore my visor.

That thing hasn’t left my head

My camera really doesn’t capture the colours.

That night was our 50th and final night camping for the foreseeable future. So collectively, all our equipment felt it was time to give up. A tent pole cracked, a container of water leaked over everything at my feet in the car and our air mattress sustained on almighty puncture. So we woke the next morning lying on the cold hard gravel. We didn’t bother with seeing the sunrise.

That day we decided to hike into the canyon on the Bright Angel Trail.

The thing about hiking into canyons is that the first half is deceptively easy. The second half is sweaty.

Here we are still fresh and heading on down:

We hiked 2.6km down to the mile-and-a-half rest house. The pay off for not much hiking was pretty sweet:

The token ‘looking into the canyon’ shot

And again

We spent a while taking photos, chatting to other hikers and taking photos for them, so by the time we turned around to walk back up it was sweltering. Thankfully we didn’t have far to go.

Back at the top

We stopped off at one more look out before bidding farewell to national parks and camping for a little while.

Staying in a cheap motel that night was utter bliss. There was a bed that required no assembly, a rainfall shower that you could walk to (and use!) barefoot and power outlets everywhere. It’s the simple things.

Next up, Vegas!