Day 4: A walk in the woods...

So here we are in the Grand Canyon National Park, we are staying at the North Rim, site, which is much quieter than the more famous South Rim park. Of the 5 million visitors to the Park each year just 10% come this side, and it shows - much calmer and less commercial. The main lodge is perched on the Canyon side, with amazing views from the terraces and dining room - at breakfast we had a ring side seat of the whole vista.

All the cabins are set in a pine forest, huge ponderosa trees giving the place a real "back woods" atmosphere - last night I thought I saw "Big foot" lurking in the shadows out side our cabin, but it was Jan returning from the "Deli in the Pines"...

We were up really early today, (5:15am), so as to see the sun rise over the canyon. The atmosphere was really still and peaceful and the scenery was great, the overcast skies mean the sun-up wasn't so good but heh this is the Grand Canyon!

After a hearty breakfast we decided to explore one of the trails, we walked about 6 miles through the enormous pines and stopped at a Canyon viewing spot - we could have walked into the canyon itself, but to get the bottom was a 14 mile round trip, and don't forget half of that is steeply uphill!

There were mule rides advertised at the lodge but there was a weight restriction and a set of very public scales next to the booking desk... vanity got the better of us and we opted out! As we walked we frequently had to skip over mule s*** and p***, so we felt that we had partially experienced the "experience". 

As a nice piece of symmetry, we also watched the sunset, this time the skies were much clearer and the views were breathtaking.

We finished the evening with a talk from a Park Ranger on the early Colorado River explorers, mad pioneers who rode the rapids through the canyon, often killing themselves in the process.