May 31 - Camping with the family in Sedona

Susan and I got to spend our days off last week with daughter Christy and family in the Red Rocks Country of Sedona in north central Arizona.  This area is about 2 hours away from the Grand Canyon and is well known for it's eclectic life style and beautiful red rocks.  We camped at Pine Flat Campground, a heavily forested national forest campground with Oak Creek running right behind our tent.

We hiked on the West Fork Trail where there are 13 creek crossings of Oak Creek.  We were able to make it to the 4th creek crossing before the little ones tuckered out.

At one time, this was private land which was donated to the national forest.  There is an old apple orchard to hike through and this old chicken coop.  This must have been quite an upscale place (as Sedona is today!) as actors like Jimmy Steward and Clark Gable visited. 

A thunderhead started building to the south but we never got any rain.

Some pretty wildflowers along the trail. 

Susan and I are headed to Antelope Canyon for our next day off.  We both worked today, so we're ready for a change of scenery.  Hope I get some good pictures; we've been looking forward to Antelope Canyon for awhile!  

May 28 - California Condor

Good morning everyone.  California Condors are an extremely endangered bird species which make their home here in the Grand Canyon.  Fortunately, through a captive breeding program, we've been able to bring them back from the brink of extinction.  Condors are HUGE, very slow breeders, and actually went extinct in the wild in 1987,  A few pictures will help tell the story - the face only a mother could love!  😊

As I mentioned, condors are HUGE birds, weighing about 20 pounds with a 4 foot body and a 9-10 foot wingspan.  That is the width of the bus that I drive!

While not a true bird of prey, they eat only carrion.  A bird of prey will kill and eat.  Condors cruise the thermals with their keen eyesight looking for dead animals.  Usually they'll spot eagles or ravens on a carcass.  Then, because of their size, condors will come swooping in and literally bully the other birds off the carcass.

They have no hair or feathers on their head because that would be too messy to keep clean.  Who ever thought a bird that eats only carrion could be so fastidious?!?!

As we can see from all the preening that they do, looking good is obviously important. 

 

Condors do mate for life.  This fella (#80) was hanging out on this ledge while his mate was flying around looking for food.  They live up to 60 years but are very slow breeders.  The female lays only one egg every other year.  The last wild condors were taken into captivity in 1987 and literally hand fed back from extinction.  Breeders used a hand puppet that looked like a condor to teach the chick how to eat.  The chick takes a week to break out of it's egg shell.  Both the mom and dad help raise the chick.

Lead ammunition left in the gut pile by hunters was one of the main causes for condor mortality. Now hunters are using copper bullets more frequently, which is helping condors to live and live longer.

There are now over 400 condors living in California, Utah, Arizona, and northern Mexico, with over 220 living in the wild.  There are several successful nesting pairs as well.

So glad to see California Condors flying majestically again in the Grand Canyon.

Imagine that bird with 9-10 foot wing span floating over head.  A true success story.

May 25 - Desert View Watchtower

Desert View is another Mary Jane Colter creation.  Started in 1929, just as the Depression was beginning to change America, Desert View was completed by 1932.  Colter was a very resolute woman, first as an architect and as she oversaw construction.  Both these fields were male dominated, so her strong will was not appreciated. She was often resented for her demanding perfectionism.  But she had the backing of her bosses at the Fred Harvey Company, so she always got what she wanted.

Desert View Watchtower is a 70 foot high, 4 story building built by Colter for the Santa Fe Railroad. The company had realized that tourism was an important part of their business plan, and they needed another "destination" for Grand Canyon visitors on the eastern end of the park.  Like Hopi House, Desert View embodied the architectural philosophy of Mary Jane Colter.

The story is told that the construction workers, realizing that she had left the building site for a period of time, began to work in earnest.  When she returned and found a course of bricks not to her liking, Colter had them rip out the stones that weren't "correct" and find better stones. Quoting from one of her biographers, "Colter's philosophy was that a building should grow out of its setting, embodying the history and flavor of the location.  It should belong to its environment as though indigenous to that spot. She could not visualize the design of a building or plan its decoration until she had thought out its 'history.'"

Note the balolookong on the right corner of the building.  This is a Hopi mythical snake, the Great Plumed Serpent.

This is from the roof of the first floor. Note the different colors of stone that she purposefully designed into the building. Colter lived with the Hopi at several different times so she could understand their pueblo building style.

Looking back to Desert View from Moran Point - the next point to the west (about 3 miles away).

But a building is more than just an exterior, and Mary Jane Colter was also very exacting in how she decorated a building.  These pieces are designed to look old, but were installed in the building in 1932.  

 

This is a 180 degree panorama of the first floor interior.

Desert View Watchtower is an incredible building.  And the view of the Colorado River is just as spectacular.  The Colorado has been flowing south for about 35 miles, from Glen Canyon Dam through Marble Canyon.  The river then swings hard to the west, right at the base of Desert View.  For Mary Jane Colter, the choice of this location was no coincidence.  

The green ribbon below is the Colorado River, over 300 feet wide (as wide as a football field is long).

The Colorado River is 1450 miles from the Rockies in Colorado to the Gulf of California.  

It runs 277 miles through Grand Canyon National Park. 

May 24 - First hike into the Grand Canyon

Susan and I picked a short, sharp, and popular trail for our first hike - Bright Angel Trail.  Back before the Grand Canyon was a national park, Ralph Cameron charged a $1.00 toll to hike down. (Cameron filed fake mining claims in order to "legitimize" his toll. When those claims were thrown out, he had his friends file claims so he could keep charging the toll. The fight was many years in court and Grand Canyon was brought into the national park system before the Bright Angel Trail was finally opened to all for free.)

Hiked down to Mile and a Half House where there is water and shelter.  Dropped 1100 feet in 1.5 miles. This was the middle of the day, so there were just a few spots of shade. And those were sooooo welcome and needed!


Next time, Three Mile House for sure...and definitely starting earlier.  That's another 1100 foot drop in 1.5 miles.


This is dropping from the Kaibab Plateau towards the Colorado River.  Kaibab is Native American for "mountain turned upside down."  And that's exactly what this hiking is. We stopped at Mile and a Half House for water, some snacks, and shelter from the sun.  What an incredible view!

That green area in the picture below is a riparian zone called Indian Gardens. It's another 3 miles away and 2000 feet below us.  Indian Gardens has camping and (obviously) water, always an important consideration when hiking in the Grand Canyon.

The pictures below show how sharp and sheer the canyon walls are as we headed down the Bright Angel Trail.  View on the left side and right side of the trail.  

And mules always have the right of way on the trail.  

There is an even steeper section of the trail called Heartbreak Hill.  You can see the mules have stopped there for a rest.  

Looking up at the canyon rim - Kaibab Limestone - 230 million years old.

As we started heading back up from Mile and a Half House, the trail gets very dusty.  The mules pound (more like pulverize) the trail every day - rain or shine.  

Down is optional; up is mandatory.  

We also had our first day off together on Tuesday, going to Flagstaff for "supplies."  Flag is about an hour and a half away but I needed a haircut and we needed some groceries.

May 18 - Sunset Pictures

If this is training, let's keep it going!  I was on the Hermits Rest Sunset Tour.  We go west all the way to Hermits Rest, where Louis Boucher (aka the Hermit) lived.  He wasn't really a hermit but he did prefer to be alone.  The "Architect of the Grand Canyon" Mary Jane Colter built a rest stop out at the western terminus of the road for the Fred Harvey Company in 1914.  At that time, it was a stagecoach tour and folks needed a place to rest after the 9 mile journey.

As the bus pulled away from Grand Canyon Village, it was snowing.  Yes, this is May 18!  Snow wasn't sticking or anything, but it was cold.  Got out to the first viewpoint and were greeted with this picture.  We were all concerned that there might not be any good sunset pictures.

Above, this is looking across to the North Rim.  But as we visited Hopi Point and Pima Point, things started looking up.  Our final stop was Mohave Point.  So I took a few pictures to share.

This is my favorite so far.   

Take care and have a great weekend.