Day 11

After a good night’s sleep we all woke up feeling much better and decided to get on a shuttle bus to the El Tovar Lodge where we had breakfast as it’s important to eat well before a hard day’s hiking around the Grand Canyon. We walked to the Bright Angel trailhead past the small stone studios built in the 1930’s by artists who wanted to come and paint the scenery. We turned there to go the other way along the Trail of Time which documents the geological history of the Canyon while walking along the rim. The earliest rocks here are over 1750 million years old even though the Canyon itself is only about 6 million years old. Having walked for nearly 2 billion years we headed back to the RV to get ready for a helicopter trip from the nearby airport. Our trip took us across the Canyon to the North Rim and back around in a big circle flying over all the rock formations. We all really enjoyed our flight and all too soon we were back on solid ground heading for the National Forest areas around the top of the North Rim in a jeep for a sunset tour to Grandview Point. The sunset was really stunning and we watched a thunder and lightning storm happening above the North Rim which was really cool. In the jeep I sat next to an American man who was really nice, Mum and Chris spoke to him and his family and we decided that we would all go out to dinner together when we got back. After dinner it was time to head back to the campsite for a well deserved sleep.