The glory of Grand Canyon inversion in June

This has been an incredible season for Grand Canyon inversion, but it doesn’t usually happen in June.  So, what’s normal about weather?

Jim and Gayle pulled in with their RV Tuesday to spend three days as my neighbor.  They got lucky and then got two more nights in the park’s campground.

Rained all night, not truly a down pour but steady.  Good weather for sleeping.  We’d planned an afternoon drive out on the scenic road on the North Rim for Wednesday, the touristy day.  Seemed like the rain would let up a bit in the afternoon.

The first view point at Vista Encantada was fogged in, but kept teasing with tiny views of faint reddish rock on the canyon walls.

The Walhalla overlook proved better views though at first there wasn’t anything to see but fog.  Then patches of blue let tiny rays of light through the clouds and illuminated the canyon with even the muddy river showing a bit of glow.  Seeing the Rio de Colorado run red is a treat and means the Paria and/or Little Colorado are flashing.

We stopped to see Angels Window from along the road.  But as Jim said, you could hardly focus before things disappeared.  Slipping behind the quickly moving foggy fingers.

Pulled into the Cape Royal parking lot which literally disappeared and then it started to rain pretty hard.  We’d been lucky up to the point.  So we chatted in the car a bit then bright blue spots appeared behind large fluffy clouds and wisps of fog as we walked the .3 mile accessible paved trail to Cape Royal.

Took the side trail to the top of Angels Window and below in the fog appeared a round rainbow with our shadow in the center.  A glory or broken- spectre, is caused by light through air in drops of water.  Gayle said it followed her.  Kind of like driving past a rainbow seems as if it stays abreast.  What an interesting phenomenon.

We were all so totally intrigued almost forgot to look up at the canyon as it slipped in and out of view.

Finally at the end of the trail, the view from Cape Royal slipped in and out revealing peaks into the canyon.  Unbelievable how fast the fog moved.

From the wedding site at Cape Royal, where you can get a permit to marry overlooking the canyon, the fog lifted and gave us an uninterrupted view.

On the way back home we stopped at Point Imperial and were treated to a magnificent view with just some clouds on the horizon.  Hard to believe it was the same day.