The Long Suffering Wife and I had spent a most wonderful first day at the Grand Canyon, taking a bus tour out to the west with stops at Hopi Point, Mohave Point, and Trail View Point (see below). I walked along the rim in the village. We had a wonderful anniversary dinner and saw many nocturnal mule deer after a wonderful sunset. We stayed in one of the cabins near the rim and the train station, then prepared for Day Two. (FYI, if you don’t feel like walking around in the dark, they have taxis. But if you’re a walker, it’s not that big of a place, it’s safe, and it can be marvelous at night.)
On the second day we had hours to go before the train left to go back to Williams, so we caught a different bus (but with the same driver — and the same jokes) that went out to the east along the rim.
Google Maps
You can see the points to the west of the village where we stopped on Day One but to start Day Two we’re waaaaaay out there on the right. (Check the scale on the map. “Waaaaaay” is all of about two miles and might have taken five minutes on the bus…)
Yaki Point, looking back to the west. The Village is out of sight from here, but at the bottom of the picture you can see one of the many scrub jays that will hang out around the viewpoint areas. They didn’t seem too intimidated by people, so I’m guessing they were looking for handouts. Like “Grand Canyon pigeons”.
Looking east from Yaki Point.
Many, many, many, many, many, many, many layers of sedimentary rock laid bare.
At the lower left of this picture you can see a trail’s switchbacks winding down that promontory of rock and then heading out across that lower mesa. I believe that’s the South Kaibab Trail.
These bristlecone pines have a tough existence up here on the rim. It’s arid and dry, windy, hot in the summer, freezing in the winter, and there’s no soil, only rock. This one might have been hundreds of years old, but I think it finally lost this fight.
Anywhere a seed can land and get a foothold, some tough plant or the other will give it a shot.
At most of the viewpoints we just looked around at the conventional viewing sites next to the parking lots. Here I wandered off along the rim for a bit, being very careful and watching out for rattlesnakes. (You have your phobias, I have mine.) There weren’t any signs saying that I couldn’t or warning me that I would die if I did, but I didn’t get all that close to the edge, just in case.
It’s not the fall that kills you, it’s the sudden stop at the end, and I don’t bounce as well as I used to.
We Love The Stars Too Fondly 