Grand Canyon National Park

From Antelope Canyon I drove a long 3+ hours the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.  Compared to the crowds at Zion, Antelope, and the South Rim, the North Rim was a slice of heaven!

I got there with plenty of time to set up my camp and have a leisurely dinner before heading out to one of the lookout points.  Sunset kind of fizzled, but as always was still nice to watch - even more so to watch the light climb out of the Canyon.

I was on the North Rim for two nights and on the South Rim for two nights.  Every night I put myself in a position to catch a sunset and every morning got up pretty early to put myself in a position to watch the sunrise; an experience I highly recommend.  On the North Rim, it was usually just me and one or two other people.  On the South Rim, I had to get there very early or walk down the Rim Trail a ways to get some solitude.

Some of you may recognize my new Facebook photo (above).  I was in no real danger, and once I took my photo everyone else just had to do it, too!  I got here fairly early, which since I was just sitting around not rushing from place to place meant that people felt comfortable chatting me up.  I met three South Korean exchange students that were bicycling Route 66.  They had a great time laughing at my photo and then re-enacting it.  I don't mean to brag, but as a former Ranger I obviously am immune to fear, so this photo above will likely get me the Tony/Oscar/Emmy/Nobel . . . I expect a phone call any day now ;-)

The next day I was in for a real treat for my sunset photo attempt (below).  As I was standing around waiting for the light to get good, this rainstorm came out of literally nowhere (it was cloudless, blue skies for the hours preceding this).  Unfortunately I had to use my hat to protect my real camera, but pulled out my iPhone for this photo.  It isn't the best from a technical perspective, but that arc on the (double) rainbow was HUGE so I couldn't get the Canyon and the rainbow in one shot, so I opted for the rainbow.

There was a wildfire in the area, it was more of a threat to the North Rim, but nothing terribly close to where I was camped.

Have a great day everyone!

Marc