Cottonwood Campground to North Rim to Cottonwood Campground

Day Three Miles: 13.6
Cumulative Miles: 27.8

October 28, 2011
Cottonwood Campground
6:20pm

Sorry I didn't write more last night but we were in bed by 7!  A quick sponge bath, dinner and we were zonked!  All good though, because we were up before 5:30 this morning.  We anticipated the trip to the rim to take as much as six hours.  The woman a few sites down had done it in 3.5 but she was in crazy good shape.  It's almost 7 miles to the rim and lots of elevation gain.  As it happened, whatever we've been doing to prep for this trip has been working - we made the rim in just under 4.5 hours!

When you look at the canyon from a distance, all you see are reds and oranges and browns.  When you get up close though,  you see layers of purple, blue and green rocks as well.  It's pretty neat.

The other thing that is hard to grasp from the outside is the scale.  You look at the Canyon and think "Yeah, that's big," but it doesn't compare to how it feels when you are standing next to a boulder the size of a house, so deep in that you can't see either rim.  Words just can't describe it and I know that even doing what I am doing I am only experiencing the smallest portion of what this Canyon is.

Anyway, two! rims down, one to go on our epic Rim to Rim to Rim trip.  As I wrote on the Ranger Station Message board, AK GIRLS KICK ASS!  Seriously, the only other person we've met so far with an itinerary as awesome as ours was a woman.  The guys are totally wimping out.

Ok, sketti dinner now and hopefully star trails before bed.  Night!

PS: "Hey, it's the animal!"  Elaboration later.