Drive to the Grand Canyon

With a renewed sense of optimism, we woke up at about 4:00 am for the first day of the hike.  Unfortunately, the actual hiking wouldn’t start until after noon.  The drive from Phoenix to the north rim would take us about six hours.  I hadn’t been to this part of the world before and I was curious about what the terrain would be like on the drive.  We were supposed to hit the road at five but didn’t start until after six due a delay with our ride.  We used the extra time to enjoy some of our last civilized toilet facilities and to top off on coffee.

The first part of the drive was in the dark and it didn’t look like we were missing anything interesting from a terrain perspective.  As the dawn broke, the landscape became more interesting. After a short time, I started to regret my earlier coffee intake.  There wasn’t a lot of facilities along the route and I was a bit hesitant to ask to stop fearing that once I started, I would be asking often.  Finally, I broke down and asked for a break.  It turns out that I wasn’t the only one that had to go!  My fellow hikers appreciated that someone else was the first to ask to stop.   For future stops, I was often invoked as the reason for a bathroom break.  “We need to stop,” my fellow hikers would state,  “George needs to go to the bathroom.”  :)

Landscape along the drive to the canyon.

Not having driven from Phoenix to the North Rim before, I was curious about the crossing of the Colorado River.  In my imagination, I pictured the Grand Canyon and struggled with how you would construct a bridge to cross that wide expanse.  It turns out that reality was much more modest.  The road crossed the river in an area that was reasonably narrow. The Navajo Bridge was the original, one-lane bridge, which has been converted to a walking bridge. We enjoyed the break from the drive to walk the bridge (and enjoy the modern bathrooms!) 

Wes and George on the historic Navajo Bridge

The elevation increased as we headed west after crossing the Colorado River.  The rocky terrain gave way to pine and aspen forests.  As much as I was enjoying the desert, the trees were a welcome change of scenery.  We were fortunate to be doing our hike after the Aspens started to change color. The yellow and green contrasted beautifully! 

Pine and Aspen forest

We eventually reached the trail head at about 12:30 pm.  The temperatures were much more reasonable compared to Phoenix. We unloaded our packs, grabbed a Jimmy Johns sandwich, and said farewell to our driver. There were a number of folks, like us, who were either coming up from the canyon or heading down. The atmosphere was exciting and we were eager to start the decent!

YogaGeorge