With a round trip ticket from SFO-LV costing only $65, we booked Spirit airlines. Spirit had a rating of 1 out of 5 only because people could not rate zero. But in terms of ROI it will be ranked one of the highest. I had no complaints whatsoever.
People land in Las Vegas, then drive from LV to Grand Canyon and finally hike to bottom of the rim all in one day. By the time we reached Grand Canyon, Sun was already down and even the visitor center was closed. Our drive was full of halts and we spent good amount of time at Hoover Dam and Pat Tillman bridge, longer than we should have. Our lunch stop was at an all American Diner called Griddles which had a hard time finding vegetarian place for us. But in the middle of nowhere, Griddles is a specialty restaurant, here there are no plates but instead small griddles made up of some aluminum compound, or may be it is a toast to some bygone era.
It was before dawn when we left our lodge. We started hiking the Rim trail on the Western edge when it was twilight and hiked all through Dawn untill we were at Powell's point to see the Sunrise. Sunrise was beautiful.
Grand Canyon is beautiful if you just look at it. It goes forever in either directions and as you look at it, you feel that you are witnessing something extraordinary. For many, this may be it. But the true trance feeling comes when you just sit there and look it calmly. It is a therapeutic experience. One can't get enough of it. As you focus your attention to one part of the canyon, there is another part howling for you attention. The rocks in front of you have been there since the day Earth was born, they have seen everything. On the lighter side, my thought went to the Total Perspective Vortex in The HitchHiker's guide to the Galaxy, the ultimate torture device, which showed you how tiny you are in the entire universe. Similarly, grand canyon reminded me how small is our life span compared to this canyon, but instead of being tortuous, it was a serene feeling. If there needs to be a teacher to teach you that your life span is indeed small given the entire universe, the teacher has to be similar in size and magnitude of the Grand Canyon. Global warming, pollution, sea level rise etc etc, as if the Grand Canyon is trying to tell us - i have seen everything before and have survived and so i will do now, you worry about yourself. The beauty of Grand Canyon comes from its scars and ridges, it is the face of a strong man who has bore everything. Like the Atlas who carried the world on his shoulders, the Atlas who is refusing to shrug.
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| From Grand Canyon |
As you sit there and see the Sun rise up and down, you quickly realize that every second imagery at Grand Canyon is different. The interplay of shadows from one canyon to another is very fascinating, one could never get tired of it. We saw the Grand Canyon from the Hermit's rest, from the East side and then later from the Desert Watch Tower. Next day, we saw it from Yavapai point and another point whose name i have forgotten now.
We hiked the trail going down for about 1.5 miles. We were extremely negative about our ability to hike, so much so that what we had estimated would take 4 hrs, we were done in 2.5 hrs. The biggest disappointment from the trip would be our inability to hike down to the base. We should have planned better and we should have done it. But even in that 1.5 mile hike going down, the view changes every half mile and it offers a unique perspective. We also joined the elite group of 5% of visitors who visit every year and take a step below the Rim. For the most part, people are happy to stay at the Rim itself.
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| From Grand Canyon |
On the last day, we took a Ranger tour where a Ranger explained to us how nature works symbiotically at the Canyon. The Ranger's enthusiasm to explain things was infectious. It was an informative tour. What should have ideally been our first stop became our last and so we went into the visitor center. This photo of the first group of people who came to Grand Canyon by the Colorado river is something that i still reflect upon sometimes -
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| From Grand Canyon |
Other GC excursions included watching a documentary on Grand Canyon, visiting the Train depot, a failed attempt to see Sunrise on the next day, another failed attempt to listen a talk on importance of Fire as i slept midway, and a visit to the Tusayan museum. Also, we stopped at Route 66 both while coming and going as it was just interesting to witness a town that would have been at its prime decades ago but now is struggling to attract tourists. Imagine if that will happen to Manhattan and Times Square. The imagery of a deserted Time Square signals doom of mankind in my mind.
The complete album can be seen at -
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