The day before yesterday we arrived at the Mather campground in the Grand Canyon NP in the early afternoon. We didn’t want to get too comfortable, cause we didn’t knew how bad the weather was gonna be the next day. So we decided to grab our kids and head for the Canyon. Thank God we already knew where we wanted to go. There are shuttle buses that take you to the rim of the Canyon. There are 3 lines. A red, a blue and a orange one. They leave every 10 minutes. Before we reached the bus stop we saw a mule deer standing between the trees. She didn’t get startled and kept on eating, even though we were standing only 5 meters away from her.
Our plan for the afternoon was: Getting to the “oh ah point”. For this hike we had to take the bus to the South Kaibab Trailhead and walk 0.9 miles down into the Canyon and after that 0.9 miles back up. First we had to take the blue line to the visitor center and after that the orange line to South Kaibab trailhead, where we arrived at 3:30 pm. Going down was pretty easy. But we did have our doubts about the steep way back up again. We went deeper and deeper into the canyon. After 45 minutes we finally reached the „oh ah point“ We had an amazing view into the canyon (to be honest, the views on the way to the point weren’t to shabby either). Now I understood how the point got its name.
After a quick break we started our hike back up to the rim. We had to stop quite often. We were really glad that we got some trekking poles before our trip. Due to our frequent breaks quite a few people went past, but not without words of encouragement or admiration. With these comments and a few snacks we did made it back up to the trailhead.
Really exhausted, but glad and proud of our achievement we went back to our campsite.
Yesterday morning then had a couple of surprises for us in store. We knew the weather was gonna change, but we didn’t know how much. When we woke up it was raining. That, we were expecting. Later the rain turned into hail and then into snow (that, we did not anticipate) We were really glad though, that we had a furnace in our RV (which was already turned on the whole night). This made the whole weather change something we could watch from the window while sitting in the warm RV and having a big breakfast. A group of deer then graced us with their presence, walking by our window almost within our reach.
Soon it was noon. Since the weather was showing no signs of getting better we decided to spontaneously leave one day earlier (who likes rain and snow…). The only question was: Where to? We didn’t have any internet (no cellphone coverage and no usable wifi) so we had no idea where the next campground was that we could drive to before our next planned stop. So we started to drive East on the 64 (the road had been closed due to the weather earlier in the day, but was just reopened shortly before we left). On the way we stopped at several view points, enjoying a Grand Canyon full of clouds. What a change of the scenery compared to the day before!
The plan was to drive until we hit an area with cellphone coverage and then plot our next move. But unfortunately we had the wrong carrier (AT&T) – where we were going, it seemed, Verizon was the only available network. Just not for us. So we stopped at a Burger King in Cameron to grab a coffee (side note: Never ever get a coffee at Burger King. Seriously, just don’t. That stuff, you couldn’t even give it to your flowers…). But at least they had free (albeit very slow) wifi so we were able to locate a RV park in Tuba City, only half an hour away from Cameron. They even have wifi in the main house, so that we can plan the next days and also upload this post.
