Got up super early now being 2 hours ahead of CST, lucky for us all the coffee shops in Page open at 6, pay attention KC, coffee at 6 am is a thing. Packed up the shit and went to a sweet donut/coffee place, the coffee was meh, but the donuts were delightful. Hopped on the road south towards the Grande Canyon, it was a gorgeous drive, waiting for JWs pictures to show up in the google drive, but it was very stress free for a couple hours before we arrive in Tuba, and then the traffic picked up a bit, not long after we took a right turn and were headed straight into Grand Canyon National Park. I got a picture.
JW had an urge, so we took the first stop at the prairie tower, which gave us the first viewing of the Grand Canyon and it was breathtaking.
We continued along the road and stopped at a couple lookouts realizing they were all the same, and eventually came to the road leading to our trail hike at Haibab Trail, but the road was blocked and a sign said go to the visitor center. So we headed over there and the parking lot was filling up, some asshat even took up 2 spots, more on that later. We got our spot and there were buses that took you out to the various trails, but I decided we;d walk along the paved rim trail not realizing that it was easily 2 miles away. We kept seeing the spot in the distance and it never seemed to get any closer. We also realized all the cars parked alongside the road were merely people taking a short cut to the trail head. We;d gone too far too turn back now and rounded the bend just as a bus let off a load of hikers. Oh my god there were a lot of fucking people out here.
We stood in line for 20 minutes at the only working WC, and eventually headed down the Kaibab trail. It was very down hill, like emensly downhill, and there were people running up, people running down, and people with canes going very very very slow. It was hard to walk down and admire the scenery, but we took in every goddamn minute of it. After a while JW remarked she was getting a blister.
Ouch.
She put on a bandaid and we continued down. Her bandaid fell off almost immediately. She was the trooper, and down we went. We reach Ah Ha point, and kept on going. The crowds thinned after that point, but the trail down didn't get any easier. At one point we had to get out of the way as 3 mules made their way up the trail. We looked down and saw the landing area of Cedar Point, still very far away. At one point some hikers on the way up told us about skeleton point, which was our final destination. They had been hiking since 7:30 and it was now 11. Fun times.
We arrived at Cedar Point and took a breath and JW said she only had 1 bandaid left and didnt think she could make it any further down. She offered to wait for me if I wanted to continue the 1.5 miles left to skeleton point, but at the moment I realized, we stil had to go back up and we’re old and our knees ain’t what they used to be. So I made the executive decision to go back up and this was probably the best call of the trip because it was a fucking bitch to hike back up, those downhills became paoinful uphills and it took at least twice as long to get back up
We saw people struggling up, and we saw a steady stream of people coming down, and the top seemed as far away as it did 10 minutes ago, but low and behold we made it out alive. We headed over to the bus station and caught the bus back to our car. There was a family sitting near us telling others the stories about how they’d spend 5 days on the floor of the canyon and it was a marvelous time.
We reached the bus station at the visitor center and walked back to our car. I was curious about that double parked SUV that I may or may not have put some gum on the their side mirror. As we walked past it I noticed it was still there, double parked, and then the lock clicker came on, and the family that had been on the Grand Canyon for 5 days came walking up behind us and went straight to that car. I had the joy of watching them pull my gum off their side mirror and everything was ok in the universe.
We got to our car and went over to Grand Canyon village and enjoyed. A terrible salad, a beer and some wine. We then drove down to the end of the road and saw the massive hotel that stood there as well as the train that brought people into the park. The bright angel trail started over here but it is closed and that’s a bag of dirty dicks.
Before long we were headed out of the parking, noticing the line of cars 1/2 a mile at least waiting to get into the park. Wtf? No clue. We were in Tuseyen before we knew it and checking into the Red Feather Inn. Took a little nap, headed out to Big E steakhouse for drinks and chow and back to the room lickity split.
Btw, got an email this morning that I got that job I was interviewing for yesterday in Page. NICE>
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