.jpg "Gopher snake GRCA NP AZ")
Gopher snakeWe left the beautiful Ribbon Falls behind and returned to the canyon’s Sonoran desert headed to The Box. This, the only snake seen along the trail. I would have liked to see the pink rattler found only in the Grand Canyon, from a distance.
.jpg "Boardwalk N Kaibab trail GRCA NP AZ")
Amy on boardwalk over swampWhere a side stream feeds into Bright Angel Creek a swamp has formed, complete with cattails. Yet another contradiction to the dry desert in the canyon.
+N+Kaibab+trail+GRCA+AZ+(800x600).jpg "Looking up N Kaibab trail GRCA NP AZ")
Unknown canyon butteThe 7 mile (11.3 km) stretch of the North Kaibab trail between Cottonwood Camp and Phantom Ranch is the longest leg without drinking water. So we all carried about 4 liters each, but could have filtered the creek water if necessary.
.jpg "Entering The Box N Kaibab trail GRCA NP AZ")
Northern end of The BoxThis narrow canyon with towering walls is one of my favorite sections of the North Kaibab trail. It can also be one of the hottest, during summer’s mid-day sun.
.jpg "N Kaibab trail GRCA NP AZ")
Bright Angel Creek and Bass FormationThe contact between the sedimentary limestone of the Bass Formation (where stromatolites are found) deposited 1.25 billion years ago and the 1.7 billion-year-old Precambrian metamorphic schist directly below leaves a gap of more than 50 million years in the canyon’s geologic time line called the Great Unconformity. An unconformity can mean mass erosion or no deposit at all.
.jpg "Rock along The Box N Kaibab trail GRCA NP AZ")
Vishnu schist and Zoroaster graniteWhen the North American continent was smaller and far below the equator, a chain of volcanic islands formed along a subduction line off the coast. Because of plate tectonics, the island then collided with the land increasing the size of the continent and forming what would someday be the Southwest. In addition, subducted crustal slabs of ocean deposits mixed with volcanic ash and lava flows melted and squeezed into the overlying rock to form pink veins of igneous Zoroaster granite.
.jpg "The Box N Kaibab trail GRCA NP AZ")
Canyon walls in The BoxThe Vishnu basement rocks (grey) with igneous rock (pink, white and black) mixed in forms the vertical walls that surrounded us. It’s like walking in an ancient geologic museum.
.jpg "Bright Angel Crk The Box N Kaibab trail GRCA NP AZ")
Amy and Jan cooling off in Bright Angel CreekThe creek offers a narrow strip of lush riparian growth with box elder, grasses and sedges yet only a few steps away lays the aridity of the desert.
.jpg "Bright Angel Crk The Box N Kaibab trail GRCA NP AZ")
Bright Angel Creek in The BoxI took so many pictures of this canyon, and the rock intrusions that look like geologic art to me.
.jpg "Bright Angel Crk N Kaibab trail GRCA NP AZ")
Approaching Phantom RanchThis was the last of the easy downhill part of our rim to rim hike. The canyon widens towards the mouth of Bright Angel Creek forming a delta where the first tourist camp was built in 1906. We were motivated to get to the Canteen at Phantom Ranch for a cold beer and chocolate.
Fantastic, Gaelyn! What a trip! And your shots are marvelous as always Thanks for taking us along! What incredible beauty we have in this country!
Enjoy!
Sylvia
I love the contrast of the very blue sky and the pink rock. Lovely! And it's funny to me to see people hiking in shorts and wading in a river. It's so cold here! Grey and stormy outside, and definitely not shorts weather! Funny how different parts of the country allow different activities at different parts of the year.
I think it would have been interesting to know only as much as I know today and then have that knowledge and live during the time period your post related. To be at the end of the cycle is to be but to be at the beginning is to have been and that seems important too. I really enjoyed this visit and your photography.
I love these photos of the inner canyon. Over 20 years ago I hiked with friends to Phatom Ranch to board a raft down the canyon. It was one of those experiences that excedes expectation.
Its like each line in the rock strata is an encasement of feelings that the land felt over a season or many seasons. It is a collective library of experience that can be rediscovered and felt through the intention of merging with the layered information.
Beautiful scenery.
Sydney – City and Suburbs
You've been a fabulous guide going down into the canyon. It's amazing how much history has been revealed by the rock there.
There are some places that are just too gorgeous for photos to do justice. Thanks for sharing!
Gaelyn: I was so happy to travel wit you women on this incredible trail. Thanks so much for sharing the trip. My Gradson is doing a 100 mile trip this long weekend for his school program.
Fantastic photos from your hike, I love the creek and swamp. The snake is a neat sighting. Thanks for sharing your part of the world.
I'm going to have to remember this hike for the next time I'm in that area – SO BEAUTIFUL!!
The schist and granite made me think Mother and Child for some reason. Beautiful images. Thanks.
Great tour of the canyon and a geology lesson, too. I review my geology every time I go to Grand Canyon, but I always forget the details and need a refresher.
What a great post and photographs from your hike. So many of the shots look like geologic art to me.
You always take us such wonderful places. Wonderful photos, as always and I always learn something!
Hello Gaelyn..I so enjoyed catching up with you. Your posts are so much fun that I feel I am on the hikes with you and especially since hikes for me aren't possible. I am so enamored with all the beauty and history that you present. I called my husband over and told him we have to take a trip even if I can't hike. He would love to hike and is in great shape. That would be great… Regarding your perm. My mother used to dye my hair blonde when it started turning darker. What were they thinking? Glad you are back safe and sound and in a bigger bathroom…@:}….Michelle
Great photographs again. I love your commentary.
I have to tell you though that I have it on good authority from some of my more theologically conservative friends that the canyon was cut in just a few years, just a few thousand years ago. :). (I just tell them "ok")
Lovely hike and wonderful photos!
At long last I have had an opportunity to catch up on your blog. What a wonderful adventure you have had! The waterfall is beyound orice as are the granite rock formations that look like giant imbedded claws. Pitty you did not spot a pink rattler, I would dearly have liked to seee it too.
Lovely to go along to shar your company for a while.
Nice to see the snake was facingthe other way Gaelyn. 🙂 The colors in those rock never cease to amaze me.
I don't know what to say anymore. The canyon and its features have me speechless. You are so fortunate to live in such a place and to be able to experience it first hand(and know so much of it)
That looks like a great walk with great scenery
Incredible hike and amazing photos. What stamina to keep on climbing with 25lbs on your back.
I like the little house you moved into – adorable.
amazing world indeed!
I might just be tempted to do this hike, if it's not so terribly hot. In my next life,I plan to be a geologist; always been fascinated by strata, etc.
Not only are your photos amazing so are the facts and descriptions as well. You are like a walking encyclopedia, Gaelyn.
Thanks for the journey, it was awesome 😀
I believe you had a great adventure. I hope someday, I will be able to be in that similar place, very different from what I used to be here. Mostly are rain forest.
i am so enjoying your trek…the photos are fab. thanks so for sharing your adventure(s) with us.
hope you're settled in now for the winter?
WOW!! It is so amazing–the contradictions and the beauty–the ancient history and today. Thanks for the tour and the info. As you well know over this way in EW we have our own mini grand canyon at Dry Falls and vantage and the Moses coulee and Yakima Canyon—the majesty of it all. MB
Such a fine and varied post with wonderful shots of the formations. Of course that little stream must have paradise while you were there.
Do you know how many miles you hiked all together? It sure has been a beautiful trip for you three.
Amazing views into a beautiful land. I wonder if I would even last–walking that long with a backpack, and no where near an electric outlet. 😉
Everytime I hear about Bright Angel Creek or Bright Angel trail I think of Brighty of the Grand Canyon. I loved that book as a child and it would be so much fun to see the places mentioned in the story. Lovely photos and it looks like so much fun!
Fabulous scenery – so pristine. Love that last photo in particular.
Your photos of Bright Angle Creek and the scenic box canyon are spectacular. I feel as though I was backpacking with you!
I'm favorite-ing your spot. My World Tuesday's take me places I've never been. Thanks for your wonderful photos and all of the information.
I wish you had seen the pink rattlesnake, too. I never realized there was so much water in the canyon–little creeks–not just the big river.
Great information – great understanding of the trail! I have two questions about “The Box.” When you hike downward on the North Kaibab Trail, exactly where is the northern edge of what they call “The Box” – is it where Phantom Creek meets the Bright Angel Creek? And is that the place where a panorama of the Inner Canyon opens up after you go through the claustrophobic cliffs. I’mtrying to remember from 30 years ago where that wonderful panorama opens up, when you’re going down.
Thank you! Your photos helped me figure out my photos. Your photo (3rd down) of the unknown canyon butte — there is a point in the Supai formation below Clement Powell Butte (in Esplanade) that is visible looking up trail from the boardwalk over the swamp. I have searched to see if it has a name, but so far haven’t found one.
You’re welcome. Happy to help out. Been so long since I hiked the canyon. Hope you had a good time.
Thank you!