Up & Over, Down & In

Aside from getting married, today was
By far the most memorable day of our trip. Today Sarah and I saw all the splendor of the Grand Canyon.

We started today with 50 minute helicopter ride over the canyon. We started from the south rim taking in the views of the Kaibab National Forest and all of the beautiful Ponderosa Pines.

We were flying at about 900ft above the forest when we cleared the rim. It was an amazing sensation to have the ground drop away from you so quickly and so far. We followed parts of the Colorado River and had views of the Painted Desert to the east. We had great birds eye views of the entire canyon all the way accross to the north rim and then back to the heliport.

I would go into more detail, but I could not possibly do it justice. We took countless photos and purchased a DVD, taken from the nose of the helicopter, that we will share with all of you.

We grabbed some lunch and then drove back into the park for part two of our magnificent day. We picked up some cramp-ons for our shoes and then took the shuttle out the the South Kaibab Trail.

There are three waypoints and we chose to head out to the middle one and check out the view. The Cedar Ridge waypoint is about a 3 mile roundtrip with an 1,140ft elevation change.

It took us about an hour and ten minutes to get down to Cedar Ridge. Once there we took in the view from below the rim. It was amazing and we got lots more photos. It was breathtaking getting to stand on a bluff over 1,000ft deep and getting a 360 degree view. The colors were out if thus world. I can't wait to see the photos. But wait, there is more.

There were California Condors swooping around us! The Condors were so close that you could hear their wings slicing through the are 30-50ft away. You could see their red hoods and skeletal underfeathers. I hope the photos came out.

After around 30min it was time to make our ascent. It took about an hour to get to the top. We really humped it on the way back up! We had the shuttle to ourselves back to our car.

We stopped for pizza to take back to our hotel. Tomorrow it is on to Monument Valley, UT.

What a great couple of days.

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