What time is it there?!

It is quite difficult to describe just how spectacular this was. Apparently many people’s first word when they look over the rim is WOW! Our reaction was much the same. We had booked a night in the cheaper of the rim side lodges (it gets quite pricey) to ensure that we maximised our time there.

We took a relatively short hike compared to those that are possible. As everything is DOWN, all have a difficult or very difficult rating so there wasn’t much choice! 780 feet down and about 1.5 miles of rough going, rocky and dusty trail let us to a spectacular point where all the rocks around us fell away and we were standing on a point inside the canyon. Obviously there was still another 4000 (ish) feet further down and the other side 8 miles away! It was breathtaking ...... so was the hike back up, real heart beating out of your chest stuff but worth it. Having achieved the hike according to the guideline times, we were pretty pleased with ourselves and expected a few muscle aches the following morning but we had none, obviously we are fitter than we give ourselves credit for!

We then joined the masses at the most popular sunset place (Hopi Point). As soon as the sun went down, it was pretty cold. This was nothing compared to the -3 degrees that it was at 5.30am when we caught the bus for the sunrise!! We were the only ones who made the trip to Yaki Point.

Apparently there are more takers in the summer, but hardened tourists like us are few and far between in the winter!!! The isolation of the sunrise made it all the more spectacular and worthy of the 4.30 alarm call. The colours and shadows on the rock formations meant that we both went ‘David Bailey’ mad, but we have only included a few to give you a feel.

Tip 1: The film in the IMAX theatre (just outside the park) is worth a visit. In our opinion it is best to see it after you have seen the view for real or else it could spoil it a bit.

Tip 2 : Try to stay in the park for a minimum of a couple of nights to allow enough time to see sunrise and sunset and take in a couple of hikes. If you are really athletic, take a hike to the bottom and camp overnight (it’s made perfectly clear that under NO circumstances should you attempt to go down and up in one day).

ADDED 9/1/2006:
A couple of video clips, they aren't great quality but they do give a better idea of scale than the still pictures I think.
Video1
Video2
(Each video is around 2MB, so will take a few minutes to download for those of you with dialup connections)