We got up a little worse for wear and headed out for a full day at the Grand Canyon. Ash had decided to do a hike called the bright angel trail that goes halfway down into the canyon 12 miles and on average a 9 hour round trip. Becky decided not to do it as there were so many steep drops and no hand rails it was making her feel dizzy! So we will write today from two viewpoints.

Beckys day -
I went with Naomi from Melbourne for coffee and then we headed out to walk around the rim of the canyon, we had a relaxing morning looking in the art galleries around the canyon and taking in the views. We went into a cute little shop called Kobes and saw a book all about the people who had died at the canyon and saw a woman had died from exhaustion and three people have already died from falling over the edge this year. We were a tad worried about the group doing the hike now!

We walked a couple miles and saw a massive hairy spider, dare devil squirrels and met a very nice American couple and their little yorkie dog, they were very impressed with our adventure from coast to coast and we also spoke to a couple who had done the hike more than forty times!

We saw Aussie Ash at 2pm and were shocked he had done the whole hike already as they say it takes 8 hours! He did look a little shaky and very tired so we went to watch a film about the history of the canyon.

We pottered about looking at the views some more and came across Nicole, Maria and our Ash looking very sweaty and tired, we sat down and ate ice cream and made sure they drank lots of water. They told us about the hike and I was so glad I didn't do it!

Ash's day -
Well I started the day very optimistic about the 12 mile hike (niave) we headed down the trail and me and Aussie ash bolted off infront and by the time we got to the half way down point we realised all we had for food was water and a bag of oranges (which neither of us like) so we had to sit and wait for the girls. As soon as they got there we grabbed some food and headed for "plateau point" we got there in good time, because the allotted time for this hike is 9 hours in total. We got to the point in 2hrs 20mins had some sandwiches and took photos for 20mins before we headed for the top.

In hindsight this was a bad move, I shot off again already feeling some cramp in my legs after the 2 mile point of a 6 mile hike my legs started to cramp so bad I couldn't walk or sit down. I thought I was going to have to get rescued or something. But Maria and Nicole caught up to me. Nicole is a paramedic so she gave me some cheese and told me to walk and keep my legs moving.

To cut a very long, sweaty and difficult story short we got to the top in 4hours 40mins and headed straight for the ice cream shop, were we saw Becky standing outside and she went and bought me some food. We then headed off to the rest of the group who were sitting on some grass, the Danish girls were asleep and the rest of us looked like death (accept for kim he didn't even have 1 bead of sweat) and all the tourist were staring at us and asking us questions about the hike as less than 1% of visitors to the Grand canyon actually do what we did (wooohooo).
So in the end it was worth doing but I wouldnt do it again.

We headed for camp and there was another trek group there great first impressions all of us half asleep and hobbling around because of our legs. But the best ending to a day like that the 3 Koreans cooked us a Korean dinner and it was really good everyone loved it. We then sat by the fire talked to the other trek group had some beers and went to bed at 9.