The Grand Canyon is awe-inspiring. The canyon itself is mind-bogglingly big. And attempting to capture that through photos of the thing is impossible. It’s an in-person thing.
Not to mention that trying to illustrate how awesome it is in one of those overview shots is a little bit like taking a photo of Paris from the top of the Eiffel Tower and expecting it to show how great the city is. It doesn’t work that way.
So here are a handful of photos. Know that none of them truly show how impressive the place is. You really need to go yourself.
The kid and me after hiking 1.5 miles down and back up. The Bright Angel Trail is the one the mules go down. We did not see any mules – they leave at 7am. We didn’t get started until about 10am. We also didn’t get anywhere near the Colorado River. It’s much further down.
See? It’s HUGE! And this photo doesn’t really show you how f’ing impressive it is. Seriously.
This is the Desert Watchtower. It was designed and built in 1932 by Mary Colter, looking to imitate the style of the local Native American tribes. It’s got a steel frame and is way more solid than you might think.
The sign for El Tovar, the fancy hotel on the South Rim of the canyon. It was undergoing some roof repairs while we were there, hence no photos of the building itself. We didn’t stay there because roof repairs are loud. The food in the restaurant was divine, however.
The interior of the Desert Watchtower is decorated with art in the style of the local Native American tribes. This one is, I believe, designed to look like Hopi art. The Hopi like stripes, and I can get behind that.
Ooh Ahh Point was one of our hiking destinations. This one was about a mile down the South Kaibab trail, and the views were lovely. But you can see that we’re barely inside the canyon.
This was the sunset on the first night there. It was almost as gorgeous as the canyon.
This was the outside of Hopi House, a gift shop full of local art. Some of it was impressive.
A banana yucca, a former staple of the locals’ diet. Not anymore, obviously.
