Zoomers and aspen pans. Small things like this make me deeply happy.



Mammatocumulus. Harbinger of all sorts of hell breaking loose. We stayed dry.



Dog Lake. Apparently it used to be a cattle waller until yonder rustic and picturesque fence was installed.



First glimpses of the canyon, el Arroyo mas Grande. From near the East Rim Viewpoint looking over House Rock Valley, The Vermillion Cliffs and Marble Canyon.  Marble Canyon is the upper portion of the Grand Canyon, a mere 500 foot deep, 60 mile long gorge carved through particularly colorful Redwall limestone.  This might be as good of a place as any to talk a bit about the Grand Canyon, as it was to be the dominant feature of the next 4 days. Though the Colorado River is responsible for all of this fuss, we were only to be afforded fleeting glimpses of it on our trip.  In these parts, the river has a reputation for being too thin to walk on and too thick to drink due to the mind-boggling amount of sediment being carried downstream. Mind-boggling, I say. If you were to sit down by the river for a day, pondering the wonder and beauty, perhaps taking a nap and eating a sandwich in the afternoon. Maybe starting a campfire at night before spreading out your bedroll and sleeping under the stars. But no matter what you did, while you were at your leisure, the river busily carried a half-ton of sediment past you during that day.

Even looking out at the skinny end of the canyon, it is a landscape that almost defies comprehension. The scale is just too much to process.

We rolled into our first day’s camp and I set up shop for the night.





Mike and Maggie deployed the wonder truck into camp mode, and we had a fantastic meal and a fantastic sunset.



That, however, is the sunrise, and this is what greeted me from my cot on the beginning of the second day.