Generally tourist pictures of the Grand Canyon don't include snow but believe me it snows. When we were there walkers were recommended to wear ice crampons and with good reason. Just after reading about a 24 year old marathon runner who died of heat exhaustion when she under estimated the difficulty of one of the Canyon trails in summer, I almost became a winter casualty when I slipped on an ice patch walking around the rim at Grand View. Luckily I survived to appreciate one of the most famous views in the world.
No matter how many pictures you've seen it still takes your breath away. There's also always something that you didn't expect. For example, as you drive towards the canyon you can see what seems to be a range looming out of the desert almost 40 miles away. Infact it's the northern wall of the canyon which rises 1500 feet higher than the southern wall. Access to the northern rim is completely closed in winter by snow.
Anyway the morning we visited the southern rim it was quite warm and what snow there was was rapidly melting. Pictures will never do it justice but we will post some shortly.
After a couple of hours at the canyon we made our way south to Phoenix and experienced one of the most dramatic changes in climate possible without getting on a plane.
Tempe, Arizona State University and the extraordinary hospitality of our old Bondi neighbours the Smiths, will be the subject of our next post before we get on to the horror of LA freeways.
3 comments:
So glad you're exploring the Grand Canyon, and can appreciate the enormity of it, as we did all those years ago. We had a wonderful native guide with his donkey, and we saw it in hot weather, the snow would be an extra demention. Look forward to the those shots.
Love the cowboy boots Tiff. Enjoy LA, see you soon at OGPS!
Are those pink boots Tiff's or Cracker's?
What are you going to do now in LA, mate - audition for Brokeback Mountain II?
Fair dinkum.
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