Fall Break - Day 3: North Rim of the Grand Canyon

Sunday, Oct 14:

We left the Navajo National Monument after breakfast and drove past the Vermillion Cliffs on the way to the Kaibab National Forest.

 First close view of the Vermillion Cliffs, 

we stopped at the bridge near Marble Canyon which

spans the Colorado River

 Pretty flat lighting when we drove by the Vermillion Cliffs

Heading south on AZ Highway 67, south of Jacob Lake and into the Kaibab National Forest area.  We found a nice boondocking spot right off of Forest Road 22 where it junctioned with another trail.

 Kaibab National Forest Campsite

We didn't spend the usual time setting up camp, instead we geared up and saddled up on Scarlett and headed into the Grand Canyon National Park North Rim area about 5 miles south of where we camped.

First up were the sights off of Point Imperial:

 

We even found a spot on the way down from Point Imperial to pose Scarlett:

We then rode the 15 miles or so to Cape Royal where we hiked over to the Angels Window Overlook:

 Angels Window

Sights from the Angels Window Overlook:

There are several Vista Overlooks from the Cape Royal site back towards the junction with Point Imperial Road.

As the afternoon started waning, we rode on over into the North Rim Campground/Lodge area and hiked down the Bright Angel Trail to see the setting sun create deep shadows and glowing highlights:

Hiking back up to the lodge area proved a bit taxing and we started questioning the "easy" rating given to this trail.

We made it up as the sun went down, gassed up and rode in the gathering darkness the 25 kilometers back to the campsite.  It got quite brisk on the ride once the sun was gone, quite brisk.

We hurriedly setup camp, and I determined that the house battery had finally given up the ghost on the URRV.  Still, we had heat (catalytic propane heater), a working fridge and the adventure continues.

Tomorrow: Zion National Park.