Snow at the Grand Canyon

Jen: We arrived yesterday at the Grand Canyon and purchased our National Parks Pass ($80 which lasts for a year and will not only give you access to all national parks but you get discounts on camping and some state park entrance fees too). Within minutes of being in the park gates it started to snow. Nothing was sticking to the ground, but the flakes looked big and promising. On our way to the campground we stopped at several vista points. I have been to the Grand Canyon before, when I was about 13 with my parents, but seeing it again feels like the first time. It’s enormity is unfathomable. A tiny helicopter in the distance gave us a scale in which we could compare it against. We debated doing a backpacking trip here, but after talking to a Ranger and with the weather forecast for more snow today, we decided on a day hike instead (we don’t have the best luck in this department as it is… like the time we woke up to 2 ft of snow and a small blizzard on a backpacking trip in June at Yosemite a few years ago and ultimately had to cut the trip short). When we woke up this morning to 27 degree weather, I knew we made the right decision. Nice and warm in the van in our sleeping bags, but cooold outside.

Today we hiked a trail called Tanner Trail. The park service codes the trails similarly to a ski trail: green circle means a beginner trail, blue square is for intermediate, and black diamond for advanced. The Tanner Trail is rated a double black diamond. We descended 1400 feet before basically loosing the trail (it gets harder and harder to distinguish between the trail and animal trails or washouts). It also started to snow pretty good, so we called 1400 feet down our destination and turned around. Although some may cringe at the thought of hiking in snowfall (it wasn’t actually sticking to the ground), we actually kept saying it was much more pleasurable then hiking in the 100-115 degree weather that you can get in the mid summer months, plus we didn’t see one other person on the trail! I got a few pictures, but the visibility was not optimal.

When we got back to the car we were looking forward to our salami, cheese & cracker lunch and realized that our meat and cheese was no longer in the cooler – an animal, discreetly enough for us not to immediately realize, must have gotten into the cooler the night before and taken our food!! We won’t make that mistake twice.

Reception is spotty here at the Grand Canyon and uploading photos takes a long time… so I will upload the photos of for this post tomorrow.