Friday 17 August 2012

Day trip.

Although Las Vegas is classed as being on/near the Grand Canyon, what they actually mean is its the first major city near the fault line....what that means in real terms is that if you want to see the real Grand Canyon you gotta drive 5/6 hours in to the mountains to see it... Hense the day trip.

We set off at 8am. Nice and cool in the morning here, pretty pleasant in the car to be honest. I had also packed a picnic so we didn't have to buy lunch while we where out. So ham butties at the ready we where off to the "Grand Canyon"  yey.

The trip was pretty good really. We drove through some wonderful scenery. Thunder Mountains, is what the local indians call the San Andreas range. And its an awesome site. Vast mounds of rock pushed up out of the ground by the fault shifts. The pics i took show how the mountains look all on a tilt. Not built as a normal mountain up from the middle, but pushed up against each other at angles. it was brill.

Kaibab National forest boarders the canyon and again was a wonderful site. It goes on for miles and miles, just trees, trees and more trees, sounds a bit boring when you say it like that but it was not boring at all. It was a site to see. never seen so many trees...lol.
 As we got closer to the north rim of the canyon the trees started to change. They started to thin...not thin out, as in fewer trees. But actually get thin, it took us a second to work it out but we realised they had been burnt. The main trunk was left standing, for the most part, and where black, but there where no branches. This went on, again, for miles and miles. Some of the very tall trees had limbs and greenery at the very top and there where lush green bushes, plants and flowers on the floors, so it cant have been a recent fire. It was very eerie. (on return to the rig i googled the fire at the Kaibab forest. It was in 2006.)

We reached the Grand Canyon National Park, payed our $25...ouch....and drove up to the visitors centre. A drive to any side of the canyon was half a day away. We chose the North rim as it is supposed to be the prettiest side.  Less comercial. It was.
There was a large "Lodge" as a visitors center but it also acted as a reception for hiring out the log cabins in the surrounding area. But at $169 a night Adam would not let us stay....boo hiss.....
There was the obligatory gift shop but it was very well stocked, from postcards and stickers for just a few cents to Native American carvings at Hundreds of dollars.

As for the "Grand Canyon" itself....well what can i say.  Its name does not do it justice....
Im making some surggestions to the National Park,   "Fu##ing Mahoosive Awesomeness of a Crack in the Earth", "Gigantic Great Humungus Hole" what you think..

ok so maybe "THE GRAND CANYON" is enough......


We're here.

Oh my...

Mad man.

"Fu##ing mahoosive  awesomeness of a crack in the earth"


Dont forget to see all of the pics we took just click on the link on the left that says photos...


1 comment:

  1. I took the road trip from Vegas to the Grand Canyon as well, like you say it is a fantastic drive. I don't think anything can prepare you for your first glimpse of the canyon. Breathtaking view.

    I hope you bought some of the desert tea from the gift shop, very nice brew.

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