She Says:  To be honest my first impression of the Grand Canyon wasn’t as Grand as I thought it would be.  This was partly due to the fact that I was in awe with Bryce and Zion and expected a wow factor when we arrived.  John was deeply troubled by this reaction of mine and seemed almost offended.  Don’t get me wrong, I thought it was beautiful, but I had seen so much beautiful scenery by the time we arrived and I had anticipated the GC for so long that my first impression seemed somewhat anticlimactic.  However, this all changed upon on our hike down into the canyon.

The first day we did a small hike on the South Keibab trail.  The sun was setting so we didn’t get too far down before we had to return.  We called it an early evening because we planned to do the long hike down the Bright Angel trail the next morning.  We got up around 6ish, packed our day packs and got on our way.  The hike was amazing.  It was 12mi roundtrip (6mi being completely uphill).  We were only supposed to go to the 3mi rest point which would be 6 miles total, but J kept convincing me to go further and further.  I kept thinking every mile we traveled down was another mile we would have to climb up.  It was worth it.  The views from inside the canyon were indescribable.  When I look at them, even now, they seem surreal.  I could have stayed down there all day taking pictures.

After making it just short of the Colorado River we started our ascent back up.  We made it to the 3 mile rest stop and filled up our water bladders.  While we were filling them up we met some young guys who had camped down at the bottom of the canyon and were hiking back up.  One of the guys was having a hard time hiking and was suffering from slight heat exhaustion.  They were discussing their game plan on getting him and his back pack up the rest of the trail.  Having him rescued by a helicopter would cost upward of 3k, which was not an option.  So I volunteered J :).  J agreed to hike the remaining trail with this stranger’s backpack.  He loves a good workout so I thought it was a good idea.  I carried mine and J’s pack up.  They were just day packs, so it wasn’t bad.  We were young and able and it probably saved one of them two trips.  We were happy to help. Heat exhaustion inside the canyon is no joke.  More people die of that then anything else.

Needless to say the hike kicked our butts.  We rewarded ourselves with pizza and beer..mmmmm :p.  Our next stop was Sedona.  We only passed through and got lunch.  We were running a little behind our schedule and needed to get to Cali.  We have a flight to catch to the Dominican Republic on 18 Aug. 🙂

He Says: TB and I both agreed that Bryce and Zion were a little more scenic than the Grand Canyon. It took some convincing on TB’s part to help me see it at first but eventually she swayed me. 🙂 Still, neither Bryce nor Zion had anything compared to the Grand Canyon as far as hikes go. 6 miles down then 6 back up was enough hiking for both of us for a few days.

We got some good pizza and beer afterward and crashed backed at our campsite with tired legs and sore feet. The next day we had planned some more hikes but decided the previous day was enough. Instead we headed for Flagstaff and Sedona. Target was the extent of our visit in Flagstaff but Sedona was a great town. We walked through the streets for a little bit then got some good lunch and a few more beers. 🙂 We didn’t spend too much time in red rock country but it was still beautiful and quaint. Moving on to California….