Grand Canyon

~ Grand Canyon ~

Ok so I know I’ve been saying everywhere is my favourite place but the Grand Canyon takes the cake. We had been on the road for about 5-6 hours (after stopping at hover damn which isn’t really all its cracked up to be) before pulling up to the Grand Canyon at sunset, we parked the RV and ran up to the edge of the Grand Canyon, I’m telling you now, the photos you see do not do this place justice, it is the most freeing and exhilarating feeling to finally see this place in real life. After we had done the most important thing first, we then went to check in. The accommodation was pretty good, it was basic but we were barely in the room so it didn’t matter.

The Grand Canyon village itself was pretty basic too, it only really had a grocery store. You had to drive out of the national park to get to the village just before you get to the national park check point. We spent most of our time in the Mexican restaurant, it is authentic Mexican and it is bloody delicious! We had to wait a couple of time to be seated but its totally worth it. We also ate at the steakhouse, which was also just as good.

We had already decided my mother in law, James and I were going to hike the Grand Canyon so we had to find the trail we wanted to do, we ended up going with the _________ trail. It isn’t recommended by any of the rangers or staff to go down and up in one day, most people usually camp down the bottom of the canyon and go back up the next day, it is probably a smarter option if you have the time as coming back up the canyon in the mid day sun is BRUTAL!

As we only had one day we decided to go down and up in one day, so we decided to set off at 5:30am so we could get a good head start before the sun started to burn us to crisps. It took us about 3 hours to get down to the river of the Grand Canyon, we ate our lunch down by the river and spent about an hour down the bottom until we decided we should head back up. The climb back up took about 6 and a half hours, it was a really hard climb as the canyon is super steep and it was in the mid day sun! We ran out of water along the way and had to use the few taps which were provided along the track. The water tasted like dirt but it was better than nothing! We had to stop in the shade so many times as our poor bodies couldn’t take anymore sun!

When walking back up to the top of the canyon you really think you’re never going to make it, each bit of canyon looks the same and you can never see the top, especially after 9 hours of hiking you think it’ll never end! Finally we started to see people along the track who weren’t dressed for hiking and we knew we were close to the top. Reaching the top of the Grand Canyon was the best achievement of my life, people congratulated you as you got to the top and lied down in the middle of the pathway. It was an awesome feeling thats for sure!

I highly recommend doing this, you need to be somewhat of an intermediate hiker to do this though and make sure you pack lots of water, a cap, food and sunscreen, I also recommend taking some swimmers and a small microfibre towel if you wanted to swim in the river down the bottom of the canyon. You will also be covered in red dust and dirt after this massive hike so make sure you don’t care about the trainers you’re walking in!

Make sure you get to the canyon just before the sun sets, the views are spectacular and if you’re daring enough you can climb down to one of the edges and get some awesome photos with your legs dangling over the cliff edge!