A Day In The Life - 10/08: The Grand Canyon

Quentin mentioned a few days back that he wanted to go to the Grand Canyon to do some research on National parks and Teddy Roosevelt. I told him that I had a few days off in October and that we could do it if he wanted to. So we made the arrangements to camp in the camp ground. We headed up through Flagstaff. The San Fransisco Peaks had a nice topping of snow. The low was between 27 and 31 degrees, depending on who you listen to. It is a good thing that I had my new tent and sleeping bag. Those, with a cot and a blanket, made for some fairly comfortable night, if not a restful one. It is hard to sleep well when not at home-at least for me.
I determined that I wanted to be at the canyon to take pictures early. Sun up is my idea of early. I awoke at about 5:00 am. It was dark. After a quick hike to the rest rooms, I was shivering and hopped back in the bag to warm up. Sleep was futile so I dug out my e-book and read until about 6:00. By the time that Q and I had gotten out of bed, stowed our gear, packed the tent, etc. and got to the canyon it was about 7:00 am. Then to find a parking place was the trick of the day, but we finally found one.
We were there early enough to get some good pictures. There were actually quite a few people around. We discovered that none of the offices or stores opened until 9:00 am so we decided to take pictures until 9:00 and thin hit up the places he needed to visit. So we kind of bounced along the rim from Bright Angel to Yavapi to Grand Canyon Village taking pictures from the different locations as the sun rose. It was a good choice.
When the offices finally opened we headed back to Bright Angel where we listened to one of the rangers tell some of the history of the park, including Ralph Cummins (?) who was a prospector who held claims all along Bright Angel creek and the trail. He would charge people $1 (in 1909) to cross his property to go down to the canyon. It was such a great business that he was making $20,000/year and became a wealthy man. But the govenment made it a national park and was buying up the claims. He wouldn't sell. So the government created Kiabab trail so people could go down to the canyon for free. So Ralph finally sold his claims.
This is one of the trees I found on the rim. It has been ravaged by the wind, snow and sun but still stands. It was a piece of wood with character that I would have loved to bring home to carve into something fun .
Our adventure was done about 10:30 am and so we headed back to the valley of the sun to recover from our near frostbite.