More of the Grand Canyon on Saturday

We had planned to park near the western end of the "village" and take a shuttle bus to "Hermits Rest" -- an area only accessible by walking or shuttle bus. We were going to ride the bus out, and then hike/walk back along the rim trail -- about 5 miles -- but there were various shuttle bus stops along the way, so we figured if we got tired, we could take the shuttle bus back instead. When we got to the park, we found out that Saturday was one of six free entry days into the National Parks in 2021 (https://www.nps.gov/planyourvisit/fee-free-parks.htm). We had noticed that there was more traffic, but we had left our campground a little later... by the time we got to Grand Canyon Village, there was no parking to be found in the Village. We found a spot near the Park Headquarters and Shrine of the Ages. After eating our packed lunch (that we had planned to take on the shuttle bus with us), we decided to head out to the Rim Trail from there and walk toward the western side (since we'd done much of the eastern side on Friday).

This part of Rim Trail is interesting as it tells about various rock types that make up the canyon walls. 

Saturday was cloudy over the North Rim, giving quite a different perspective:

It looked like rain or snow was falling over there...

Something we had noticed on Friday, but could see better along the Rim Trail part that we were walking on Saturday, was a trail that headed down into the valley. It is hard to see in the picture, but it goes down along that area of green (which is a creek bed).

Another view of the rim.

We decided that we really wanted to experience hiking down below the rim of the canyon. We'd been on the Rim Trail and stayed on the rim all day on Friday... what would it be like to hike down, at least a little ways? (I told Carl if we only took 10 steps down, that would be enough!)

Gathering information about the trail --

Bright Angel Trail

Cautions

Map down to Indian Garden -- a campground about halfway down

Zoom in on the top part of the trail -- cuz that's all we were going to be interested in!

We've started!

Meanwhile it still looks stormy over on North Rim -- we took at look at the weather map, and the storm seemed to be paralleling the rim of the canyon, not coming across. I don't know if the canyon forms a natural barrier for storms or not.

We could see that opening (tunnel?) down below -- that looked like a good place to aim for!

The trail was pretty broad and had steps in parts

Looking on along the trail...

... that part, over there (after the opening in the wall) looks like a good place to hike to and then turn around!

It wasn't really very far down the trail (somewhere between .25 and .4 miles).

But it gave us a good taste of hiking below the rim.

This trail is also used by the mules carrying folks down to Phantom Ranch at the bottom -- "When mules pass, stand to the inside of trail. Follow mule guides instructions." We saw "evidence" (poop!) that mules had been through, but we didn't see any.

The hike up was significantly more challenging -- but we were in good shape, we had not gone further than our ability to hike back up (we probably could have gone further if we had been better prepared with water and snacks). We have read that it gets quite warm the further down you go (someone posted from Tuesday last week that it was 106F when they got to Indian Garden (a bit over halfway down) at noon). The wind was also picking up and sand was blowing making it hard to see well as we needed to protect our eyes from the sand. We are so glad we did the hike, and would consider going further on another day (but probably not this trip to the park).

As we headed back toward the Jeep, we decided to make a stop at the Kolb Studio. We weren't sure what we would find there... we had to wait a few minutes as they are controlling how many people can be inside the building at the same time. 

It turns out that the Kolb brothers were early residents and photographers in the area of the Grand Canyon...

A painting of their studio perched on the side of the canyon (this is the building we were in).

"The Kolb Family"

Young Edith learned to travel early.

A photo showing the studio on the side of the canyon wall. When Carl realized that we were in a building hanging off the side of the canyon wall, he was ready to leave and let some other folks come in!

While we were waiting to enter, the lady at the door indicated that the Kolb Studio was the second oldest structure still standing in the park, and she mentioned that the oldest was the Buckey's Cabin, now part of the Bright Angel Lodge and can be booked for stays at the canyon:

While we were visiting the Kolb Studio, the weather had changed once again -- though it still looks as though there could be falling weather over on the North Rim, much of the canyon was sunlit and beautiful!

We headed back along Rim Trail to the Park Headquarters where we had parked the Jeep. It was nice to sit down and to get back to the rig and relax for a little while in the afternoon.