Grand Canyon Tour - Day 7
Hiking the Grand Canyon in Arizona |
Hit the trail at 5:20 am. It was pretty really dark. The air was crisp - I'm guessing low 40s? Not a lot to talk about. It's a strenuous event that you can only anticipate and stress out over, but never really prepare for. We were more than half way out before we met the first inbound hikers, and the first outbound team of mules/donkeys/horses didn't catch us until the bottom of the switchbacks. We made it out in 4 hours and 20 minutes. I think that's a respectable effort. At least I'm happy with it. I don't know if it was really easier to hike uphill, or if the intervening days of hiking actually improved our performance.
Anyway, pictures - I packed my camera and left it in the case, so all I had to use was my iPhone. I only took a couple of pictures anyway.
At the top of the switchbacks I was basically running out of steam and looking for an excuse for an extended break. So I stopped, unpacked all my camera gear (the panorama conveniently stashes at the very bottom of the pack) set up the tripod and took this 360 spherical. That was enough to get me going again.
I stuck in a few miscellaneous pictures from earlier in the week just to fill up the page. Later that day (and a pizza and Starbucks visit later) we passed through Death Valley. We stopped at Stove Pipe Wells and took some pictures of the sand dunes at sunset. We slept pretty good that night!
And, finally, a note about the GPS track - I somehow pushed the wrong buttons when I was putting it back in my pocket after a break and lost the first 2/3 of the hike. Then when I got to the top of the hill I saved the track but forgot to start recording our track from there to Lone Pine in California, via Death Valley (again). Oh well...
Day 7 Pictures
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