The Blanch Herd: Southwest Canyons and Rainbows Loop {10/6: South Rim of Grand Canyon}

Day 8 was spent at the Grand Canyon's South Rim. It was magnificent, breathtaking, awe-inspiring, amazing. Everything I hoped it would be! We left our hotel fairly early after breakfast, grabbed gas and headed south out of Page to the East Entrance of Grand Canyon. Once again we were greeted by the ranger with a joke to Cal in the back seat about us owing her ice cream for her getting us all into the park for free with her 4th Grader National Parks Pass. (It must have been standard training because pretty much everyone said the same thing!)

We stopped at the first spot we could to get a view into the canyon. It is SO BIG! (We just kept sayign that pretty much all day. haha) It was also the place to see The Watchtower, which was kind of cool.

Sam hates having strangers take our picture
plus he was mad about something before
the kind woman offered, so this is definitely
not our best family photo of the trip. Ah well.
Memories.

After our initial look-around, we continued on the road further into the park, making our way to the main parking lot near the visitor's center. The kids got their Jr. Ranger books, we looked around the gift shop, and wandered over to some lookouts nearby.

Jr. Ranger books were a big priority at
every park we visited.

Here we are at another overlook near the visitor's center.

We ate our lunch on a picnic table between the car and the visitor's center and then hopped on the shuttle to take us to the trailhead for our hike into the canyon. I really wanted to go "below the rim" so we opted for the 1.8 mile round trip down the South Kaibab Trail to Ooh Aah Point. It was an accurate name! I was amazed at how many people were hiking that trail. Luckily we didn't pass any mule trains on the trail, but as we rested in the shade on the way back up, we saw a group coming up - just like in the book we read before our trip called Mule Train Mail.

The view at the beginning of our descent.

I felt brave enough to let go of Cal's hand for a minute
and snap a pic while we were walking. But that was pretty
rare. It was definitely not a leisurely hike for the parents.

There's Gregg and Sam ahead.

And Gregg and Sam at Ooh Aah Point.

Ooh! Aah!

This is looking back into a finger we were hiking
parallel with on our way down to the point.

It's SO BIG!!!

A good crowd resting at our turnaround point.

I didn't expect to see so much greenery on the canyon
walls.

A big ol' fatty squirrel hanging out at Ooh Aah Point.

The trail continues onward and downward from there,
but we turned around to explore more parts of the park.

Here we come~

She needed a shady rest. It was pretty toasty under
the rim without the breeze that was up on top.

Onward and Upward - lots of switch backs
makes Walter's Wiggles in Zion look like nothin'.

Almost there!

I spy a Mule Train!

I didn't see a lot of riders - mostly packs.
I wonder if they're the mail mules!

We snagged another shuttle back to the main hub and then hopped on another going the other direction to get out to the geology museum and beyond. We got some more great views, including a glimpse of the suspension bridge that we learned about in Brighty of the Grand Canyon (I definitely wouldn't have cared about that bridge had we not listened to that book on our journey!). We stayed on that bus line (the blue line?) through the village (we got to see the train at the station, almost ready to head back to Williams for the day as we passed through town). At the end of the road, we hopped off the blue and hopped onto the red line shuttles which took us out all the way to Hermit's Rest, the end of that road. You can only take shuttles out that far during peak season, and we were pooped anyway, so we just enjoyed the ride and never even got off the bus. It was over an hour and a half ride that afternoon and we just soaked in the views and the rest. We got back to the transfer station, but instead of hopping back on the blue line to take us to the visitor's center and our car, we walked along the rim to Bright Angel Lodge for a fun dinner of burgers and totchos and popcorn chicken. At last, we were back on our bus, with lots of stops through town on the way back, and we got to our car just before sunset. I was hopping to be somewhere along the road back out of the park where we could stop at an overlook to see the sun set, but alas, it was dark by the time we were driving out. Ah well. It was a lovely day in a magnificent place.