The incredible Grand Canyon
The Grand Canyon – truly amazing
After a night out in Vegas celebrating Helen’s birthday, it was a tough early start as we embarked on our eight hour drive to the Grand Canyon via the Hoover Dam. Luckily Hank the Tank was big enough to keep us comfortable on such a long journey.
In less than an hour we’d arrived at our first destination, the Hoover Dam. It is as the name suggests, a big Dam! It’s a very impressive and strangely familiar sight having made an appearance in various films before. But, in reality, that’s all it is and I must say it didn’t provoke much more reaction in me than ‘oh look, there’s a big dam’.
After a quick click of the camera we we loaded ourselves back in Hank and continued forth to the main spectacle, the Grand Canyon, which we were hoping to make by sunset.
As the hours ticked by and we got further and further in land something rather unexpected appeared, ice!! It was hot when we left Vegas! And I’d imagined the Grand Canyon to be in the desert – that’s hot isn’t it?! Large chunks of snow and ice lay along the ground. Finally, we reached our destination and after disembarking from Hank we realised the reason for the ice, it was freeeeeeezing! It turns out the canyon is well above sea level, about 7,500ft. We reached for our bags and layered up. Moments later, much resembling four michellin men, we were off to see the canyon.
Wow wow and mega wow!! What an amazing sight. As Olly put it “I think this is one of the most amazing sights we’ve seen all holiday” and it was. A panorama of awe inspiring geological formation confronted us, as the sun was setting the reds, purples and golden glows of the rocks shone through. The canyon stretched as far, as wide and as deep as the eye could see. As we stood on the edge glancing over, birds flew below us – a very rare sight!
In case anyone is wondering we went to the South Rim of the canyon, right next to Grand Canyon Village. I’m sure there’s better places to go, but for ease of arrival and sheer wow factor this place was perfect for us.
The canyon provided a wealth of photo opportunities for Olly as you can imagine. With ice on the ground though, no barriers and Olly’s keen sense of adventure, my heart did end up in my mouth a few times as he encroached far too near the side of the canyon. There was in fact one instance when he was doing the classic ‘jumping’ photo and he slipped backwards on the ice, we were sure he was a gonner! Thank god he survived!
As the sun set it was magical (if a little bit chilly at minus four degrees, without a coat, and wearing flip flops). I wish I could have a house right on the edge of the canyon, with a glass wall so I could curl up in front of a fire with a warm mug of tea, and watch the ever changing face of the enormous canyon.
All the paragraphs are by Lau, all the pixels are by Olly. Hope you enjoyed it! You can read more about us on the