Grand Canyon

Grand Canyon defies description or photography, at least by me. It is just too big and too magnificent. Of course, that didn't stop me from taking lots of photos, but none of these do it justice.

It is also a mob scene of industrial tourism. Everywhere accessible by car or shuttle bus was packed, crazy busy. Walk just a few hundred yards and things are much quieter. Walk half a mile and you might have the canyon all to yourself. We took several nice hikes: one a few miles along the rim, one a short way down inside on a rough, unmaintained trail, and a longer one down in on the South Kaibab trail, which is well maintained, very heavily traveled, and very steep! We hiked that one about 1 1/2 miles in (3 mi. roundtrip), in the course of which we went down and then came back up about 1000 feet.

We were there for most of five days, and I didn't discover until the last day that I had my camera set wrong, so all were coming out with completely wrong color. I've got to use these two though, (tried to fix them in photoshop), because the very first evening in the campground we saw ELK!!! Two of them came browsing through, ignoring all the busyness and people around. They are big.






Here are a few more I had to correct the colors on:

Crowds at the viewpoint by the visitor center.

On the South Kaibab trail, hikers have to yield to mule trains.