Grand Canyon, Bright Angel Trail

We stayed at the lodge in the Grand Canyon - El Tovar, and we were lucky to get two nights in the same room. (Since we're on the road for such a long time, and we drove, we have a lot of stuff.) I had never been to the GC, (as those of us in the know call it) so it was great to be just there.

Lots of the facilities have been scaled back, and they are having problems with staffing, so getting food and drink can be a challenge. Many of the other guests were not a aware of the situation as we were (As Doreen was) so many were caught up short with no reservations and no access to drinks. Some of them got really fussy.

El Tovar Lodge
 
You could not reserve breakfast, though, so you had to wait in line. It opened at 7:00, and though we wanted to get an early start, we knew that we needed to eat something before we started.

Here's Doreen as viewed from the Mezzanine:


I will post some photos of the lodge later.

Bright Angel Trail must be the trail that most folks staying in The Village hike first. It sounds like a nice, easy hike. 1.5 miles to the first rest stop (water provided!) and then another 1.5 mile hike to the next rest stop (More water!).

And the downward trek was not too bad. Here we are, starting out:


The views are great, but they are great from the top of the rim as well.


Looking up at the rim gives you a whole different perspective.


I think this is at the bottom. 2,287' below the rim, according to Alltrails.


Hiking up was very hard.
And you did love the views. And you had plenty of time to look at them, as you stopped every 20 yards 
to catch your breath.

Views are better higher up.

Getting close
Very close

We met these kids who had just graduated from Perdue, one and electrical engineer, one a mechanical. The Mechanical was having really bad altitude sickness. We hiked with them (leapfrogging) for quite some time. The MechE looked sort of like this:

You can see the top...

And we did finally make it. 


Luckily, we had our own beer in our minifridge.
You can see the trail below:


and here.


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