Friday 27 September 2024

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Friday 27 September

Hermits Rest Bus Tour

Friday was a pretty open day, so we decided to start out with the Red Line bus to Hermits Rest (and various other stops) out that way since you can't take your private car out that road. The bus stop is right next to the Bright Angel Trailhead, and an easy walk from the Masiwk Lodge where we were staying as well.

The Red (Hermits Rest) Shuttle Bus Route runs from the Bright Angel Trailhead to the Trailview overlook, Maricopa Point, Powell Point, Hopi Point (where there bathrooms), Mohave Point, the Abyss, Monument Creek Vista, Pima Point, and then finall the Hermit Trailhead at Hermits Rest (where there is a shelter/gift shop made to look stylistically like an original cabin structure. The bus runs generally every 15 minutes, though there are times of day it's only 10 minutes between buses, from 8:00 am to 30 minutes after sunset.

One interesting thing happened while we were at one of the stops, it was directly under the flight path of the helicopters that were, about have 3 minutes, lugging construction gear from a staging area at the south rim down into the canyon where the trans-canyon pipeline project was completely renovating the water main that brings water up from springs in the canyon to both rims. The pipeline had several major breaks this year, briefly shutting down all the lodging on the rims (and actually threatened our hike, though it was back up over a week in advance of our trip).

 
Maricopa Point      

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  Red Bus Route Map

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  Overall Bus Routes Map

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  A Red Bus Stop

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  The Red Bus Loop Diagram

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  Brett and John mosey to the bus terminal

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  I think these first are from the Trailview Overlook

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  Elizabeth and I at the Trailview Overlook

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  All of us at the Overlook

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  John "Overlooks" the canyon

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  Tammy on the Powell Point Memorial

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  The Colorado River peeking through the canyon

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  Survey marker

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  Tammy looking sporty

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  Hermits Rest house/gift shop

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  Hermits Rest house/gift shop

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  Elizabeth, My Belle, at Hermits Rest

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  Transcanyon Pipleine

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  Lifting construction gear into the canyon

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  Working on the pipeline

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  New pump house and water distribution system at Havasupai Gardens

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Hike at Shoshone Point

After the bus tour we wanted to take the short hike to Shoshone Pt that "Sam" our tour guide had told us about the day before. He said it was little used (except by locals), and the best view in the place, and we figured it'd be short enough for Elizabeth hike with us.

The trail has a cute little parking area, that is ample but small. From there the trail is more of a fire road than a real trail, and it is often used for driving the supplies to weddings hosted at the point - like it was the day we were there. There's a shelter and bathroom at the point, about .7 miles from the parking area. When we arrived at the point a latin family was just finishing up taking pictures on the point, and I don't envy them because getting to the point involves climbing over some fairly rugged and steep rocks that I would not want to do in a dress for fine suit.

Once on the point, I have to agree, this was probably the best view we got the entire trip.

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  The parking at the trailhead

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  Tammy

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  John

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  Elizabeth... The Beatles!

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  Starting the hike

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  Elizabeth getting used to Trekking Poles

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  The wedding crashers!

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  But what's the point, Basil?

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  JT perplexed

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  he's figured it out!

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  ... nope, it's over there!

Visitor's Center and Geology Museum

I can't recall exactly how we got onto the idea of checking out the Geology Museum, but we did. It's out by Granduer Point, on Entrance Road about 3/4 of the way from Maswik to the Park Store and Visitor's Center. I think we wanted to go to the Park Store for something, maybe snacks for the long ride on Saturday out to Antelope Canyon and back to Las Vegas.

Anyway, we did, and it was fairly unimpressive and mostly meant for kids. BUT, Grandeur Point was cool, you could see down to the river, and there was a guy there with a spotting scope (for hunting) letting folks take look. He happened to mention there was going to be a skygazing/astronomy night that night at the Visitor's Center! That was great news, as I had wanted to do that all summer, but the Park's website implied that all of those had happened for the season.

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  Yavapai Geology Museum

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  location

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  Gift Shop

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  museum inside

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  Museum view

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  Museum

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  Museum

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  We saw some elk on the way to the Visitor's Center

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  South rim Visitor's Center

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  Visitor's Center inside

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  View from Geology center, this is Plateau Point Trail (I think) where they were staging to work on the water main

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  A condor flying over the museum

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  Important advice from the gift shop

Dinner at "We Cook Pizza and Pasta, Tusayan, AZ

After a busy day, and being on a short carb hiatus, we had dinner at the conveniently located "We Cook Pizza" restaurant near the iMax and Buck Wild in Tusayan. Our tour guide had recommended it, and there we good reviews online. It was actually quite tasty, and I over-ordered (16" didn't sound that big...) and I think I enjoyed the bread sticks more than the pizza, but it was all good.

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Cheering Hikers at Bright Angel Trailhead

We had a bit of time to kill after dinner, but waiting for the sun to set for the stargazing event... and John had some really good stories from Wednesday night when he'd walked from our lodge back down to the BA to see if folks were still coming up the trail. We were all pretty intrigued, so we walked down to check it out, and give Elizabeth a bit of exposure to the trail itself.

We ran into several groups of Rim2Rim hikers, one really big group that was missing one of theirs (she did turn up while we were there), and one older lady that came up while we were hiking down to the arch that told us about getting dehydrated while on the hike (yikes). But Elizabeth was the hit of the event because she just couldn't contain her exuberance!

Elizabeth Cheering hikers on!

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  Selfie

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  "USie"

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Stargazing / Astronomy Night at the Visitor's Center with Dean Regis

It just happens that Thursday night was Jupiter's closest approach to Earth, and Dean Regas (wiki) (formerly of the Cincinnati Observatory (old website), where we had previously met him during an Open House) was in town in the park that week, and leding a stargazing evening on Friday.

He had recently 'retired' from the Observatory, and was in town to do a Rim2River (starting on the north rim, and North Kaibab Trail), stay a few nights at Phantom Ranch, and then hike up the Bright Angel to the south rim, and hosted the astronomy night beforehand.

So, after dinner at "We Cook", we headed back to the Visitor's Center and started looking around for astronomers. It was a bit confusing at first, as there was no big banner or anything saying there was going to be an event, but once the sun started to set you could easily see the red LED light strips leading you behind the center to the parking lot where they had setup.

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  "Follow Me" to the stars

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  Dean does his "Rim to Rim" (over 4 days)

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  Dean at the River

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  Dean's Bio

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  Cincinnati Observatory

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  A green laser was used to point out targets to the audience

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  Part of the Milky Way was evident above us

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  Milky Way shots

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Go back to Thursday the 26th or on to Saturday the 28th