I have finally seen the Grand Canyon! It was grand and canyony and I ran my battery almost all the way down photographing it.
In addition to fantastic vistas, there was an abundance of birds I had never seen, namely Pygmy Nuthatches, Grace’s Warblers, Green-tailed Towhees, Western Tanagers, Broad-tailed Hummingbirds, a Clark’s Nutcracker, a Western Bluebird, a Williamson’s Sapsucker, Mountain Chickadees, and a pair of Hairy Woodpeckers. Although this hasn’t been confirmed, I believe it may be the record for most lifers seen in a day, and is certainly a generous number.
Before we went on our long hike, we stopped at one vista to see an old ruin of some buildings build by Pueblo Indians. Although it was nothing compared to what we saw yesterday, it was still somewhat interesting. Well, a little bit anyway.
In addition to exciting birds and less exciting ruins, we saw many brilliant wildflowers along the long trail we hiked, most of which I stopped to photograph. (As in most species, not most individual organisms.)
We also saw some beautiful butterflies, one variety of which (I think called a Reakirt's Blue) I was able to photograph
The other variety was much cooler and it was black with two white stripes and orange wing-tips
Unfortunately, in addition to fun wildlife, we ended up being caught in a thunderstorm. In this picture you can see the storm coming towards us over the canyon at the end of the trail where we had to turn around.
That storm probably had the worst rain I’d seen since I went to a tropical rain forest in Costa Rica. In addition to ending up totally drenched after walking in the downpour for almost four miles, there was the additional concern of lightning, which was less than a half a mile away at some points, according to my calculations. Apparently lightning is a serious concern on the canyon because of the high elevation and some spots which lack trees. Praise God that none of us were hurt and that we made it through relatively safely (I was praying for just such a scenario). Unfortunately, our hiking boots are soaked and my field guide of birds has suffered water damage. You can pray that our stuff dries our sufficiently tonight to facilitate our proposed hikes tomorrow in Zion and Brice parks. Oh, and one more thanks, my sister has been doing extremely well and felt relatively good today, despite hiking ten miles, half of it in pouring rain at 65 degrees F and being forced to skip lunch. I don’t think any of us were feeling good after that. Also, we were able to go out to diner tonight and stuff ourselves after our exploits and have a hot meal. Although I can imagine things going better on this trip, I can also imagine things getting MUCH worse and I praise God that we have been having a blast despite a few setbacks.
That storm probably had the worst rain I’d seen since I went to a tropical rain forest in Costa Rica. In addition to ending up totally drenched after walking in the downpour for almost four miles, there was the additional concern of lightning, which was less than a half a mile away at some points, according to my calculations. Apparently lightning is a serious concern on the canyon because of the high elevation and some spots which lack trees. Praise God that none of us were hurt and that we made it through relatively safely (I was praying for just such a scenario). Unfortunately, our hiking boots are soaked and my field guide of birds has suffered water damage. You can pray that our stuff dries our sufficiently tonight to facilitate our proposed hikes tomorrow in Zion and Brice parks. Oh, and one more thanks, my sister has been doing extremely well and felt relatively good today, despite hiking ten miles, half of it in pouring rain at 65 degrees F and being forced to skip lunch. I don’t think any of us were feeling good after that. Also, we were able to go out to diner tonight and stuff ourselves after our exploits and have a hot meal. Although I can imagine things going better on this trip, I can also imagine things getting MUCH worse and I praise God that we have been having a blast despite a few setbacks.
P.S. It’s a shame we don’t have internet here, my work is really starting to pile up.
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