There was a lower overlook than where I was. That was too much dangling out in thin air for my taste, plus it was already crowded with viewers and photographers. So I stayed back on the main rim trail.

On Day 5, we rose before 5 a.m. and headed back up the 8 miles of trail and 2000 feet to Hualapai Hilltop. I was determined to get there before it got hot, so the camera got put away, and I took no photos till we got to the top and started celebrating. Then drove to Grand Canyon South Rim, set up camp, watched the sunset, and got very cold very quickly. It was near freezing and it hailed around dinnertime.

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elf1 > Then it started hailing. What had we gotten ourselves into?

elf1 > It was nice to see that the park has invested itself in recycling. There was an equally large recycling dumpster near the regular trash dumpster.

elf1 > This is where photo sorting got really hard. The Grand Canyon is so beautiful, and every angle gives you a whole different picture. How can I choose just a couple?

elf1 > We were there for sunset, but it wasn't a spectacular sunset; the sun peered out from behind gathering clouds for only a brief while, just enough to bathe things in golden light for a few photos, and then it just went kind of dark.

elf1 > But, while the light lasted, I took a bunch of photos. Good thing, because there was no sunset the next evening. Snowing.

elf1 > I love the way the sunlight makes the rocks glow. You can see the different layers here; the shale layers are the ones that slope rather than going straight down.

elf1 > More sunset. All these photos were taken from basically the same place, at Yavapai Point outside the observation station/museum.

elf1 > There was a lower overlook than where I was. That was too much dangling out in thin air for my taste, plus it was already crowded with viewers and photographers. So I stayed back on the main rim trail.

There was a lower overlook than where I was. That was too much dangling out in thin air for my taste, plus it was already crowded with viewers and photographers. So I stayed back on the main rim trail.