Spring Break: Grand Canyon Adventure

We had the BEST spring break! It was an awesome Grand Canyon adventure.

First, we drove to Paige, AZ, and took a smooth water rafting trip down the Colorado River. We took a bus to the base of the Glen Canyon Dam. We had to drive through a 2 mile, pitch black tunnel to get there. Bailey thought that was really cool. We boarded our rafts right at the base of the dam, and headed down the river.

This is a view of the Glen Canyon Dam, and bridge from the raft.

This is the Colorado River where our float started. It was gorgeous the whole way.

Here are my boat buddies enjoying the long awaited sunshine. We had other families on our boat too. There was this really annoying 9 year old boy (when I say annoying, I am not even kidding). Bailey has this problem with wearing every thought she is thinking, in the expressions on her face. I kept having to tell her to knock it off, and look the other way. I though for sure she was going to push the kid over the edge before the float was finished :)!

We stopped for lunch part way down the river. We walked to a cliff that had all kinds of petroglyphs on it. These were my favorite.

The float ended at Lee's Ferry, and then we took the bus back to Paige.

This is Horseshoe Bend. We floated this part of the river. When the float trip was done, we hiked out to the overlook. It was amazing on the river, but even better looking at it from above.

I love this! Mark couldn't even stand up for a picture. He doesn't do so well with heights. He got much better though, by the time we were done with the Grand Canyon.

Sawyer didn't have any problem looking over the edge.

Me and Bailey.

Then it was off to the Grand Canyon! I was so excited. I've wanted my kids to see it for a long time.

After stopping for our sign picture, we toured the Hermit's Rest Route. This is a stretch that you can only do on a shuttle bus. We stopped at all the lookouts along the way. The day was clear, and the views were spectacular.

This is a view from Pima Point.

Mark and Sawyer

There were signs everywhere telling you not to feed the wildlife. But when Bailey opened her bag of sunflower seeds, this little guy about crawled up her pants. How could we not share? He was so friendly, that some other people were petting him. He followed us around like a pet dog.

When we got to Hermit's Rest (the end of the shuttle bus route), we did a frustrating 5 mile hike. First we tried to get to Dripping Springs. The trail got a little scary, so we turned back less than a mile from our destination. It was like a little goat trail, with a HUGE drop off into a canyon. When we got to a point where you had to climb over a rock, we decided to turn back. Then we went another way toward Waldron Basin. It wasn't really anything to see. It wasn't a bad hike, we just wished we would have picked a different one instead.

We did have this great view at the beginning of the hike though.

After the hike, we went to a few more viewing areas that we could drive to.

Sawyer is at Yavapai Point. It was one of my favorite stops.

What would a trip be like without Bailey giving us this pose? Gotta love her!

Sawyer and Bailey

Since we were a little disappointed with our first hike, we decided to try one more before our day was done. We went to the Kaibab Trail head, and hiked down to Cedar Ridge. This hike was AWESOME, and definitely made up for the last one.

This is Bailey standing at Oooh Aaah point. It totally lives up to it's name!

See how much braver he was getting :)!

This is one of my favorite pictures from the whole trip. The sun was setting, and everything looked gorgeous. Plus, I really kind of like these guys :)!

We made it to Cedar Ridge, but as you can see from the picture, we were quickly running out of sunlight. It was not a trail we wanted to hike up in the dark. Bailey was already getting a little nervous about being out there in the dark, so we quickly headed back up. They say that how ever long it takes you to get down the trail, it will be time and a half or double the time to get back up. Not in this case. We were losing light fast, so we flew up the trail. We made it up 10 minutes faster than we made it down. Bailey can book it when she's motivated by something that scares her.

Our last day in the park was AWESOME! We got up early to do a 12 mile hike on the Bright Angel Trail out to Plateau point. This has got to be one of the coolest hikes I've ever done. The trail was incredible, the view was incredible, and our final destination was even more incredible! We hiked 6 miles down the canyon, and across a plateau to a cliff that looks directly over the river.

Here they are at Plateau point.

This is the view from the rocks.

If you look behind us, the top of that canyon is where we came from.

The hike back out was hard, but the kids were troopers. We knew that rain was coming, so we did that fast too. The rain started right at our last switchback. We all LOVED this hike.

We drove out of the park along Desert View Drive. We stopped at all the lookouts along the way. It was raining our whole way out, and that gave the Canyon a whole different look.

It was cloudy and hazy, and that gave the canyon a kind of eerie look.

We saw the Canyon from the river, from the rim, and from within. It was amazing. We hiked 20 miles in 2 days, and I LOVED it. I would love to go back and do more hikes someday.