A Grand Canyon

OK - back to America now!

After a couple of Vegas nights we fled the bright lights and crossed the Hoover Dam - our destination, The Grand Canyon. While it is possible to get from Las Vegas to the West Rim of the canyon in about 2-3 hours, we were headed for the South Rim, which is more like six.


We were booked in for a helicopter flyover of the canyon, which was possibly not the best way to get our first look at it. While it's undoubtedly very impressive when you fly low over the trees at the edge and then suddenly everything drops away, it's extremely difficult to retain a sense of scale when you're a mile above the floor of the big ditch. The commentary tells you you're flying over the mighty Colorado River, which is over 125m wide - but because it's carved such a huge groove for itself, and the chopper isn't allowed to swoop down into the valley, it looks like just another average-sized muddy river. It was cool to be able to look down at the oldest exposed stones on Earth however. I know - older than Mick and Keef!


Later that evening we went back to the park and looked at the canyon the old-fashioned way. We were very surprised that in the land of the lawsuit, you're completely free to wander up to, and indeed over, the edge of the canyon. This was extremely cool, and made the enormity of it much more real. As the sun set and the shadows played over the rock faces, Bec went on a photo rampage, very nearly melting our memory card with the workload.



Not content with sunset studies, the next morning Bec forced me to we got up at 5.30am to catch the sunrise over the canyon. Unfortunately some low cloud meant the morning sun never got a really good crack at the canyon - but it was certainly great to experience the transition in such a beautiful setting.


And with that, we hopped back in the convertible and set sail back to Vegas. Yep, we were heading back for more...