Desert View - Day 8 - So, what's your 'point'?

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7:51 am - Thursday - November 16th - Grand Canyon - 41º F, 43% humidity, wind 6 mph out of the west by southwest.....high clouds with a forecast high of 62º F.....every day in the 60's is one more day for wearing short pants and t-shirts!

We've visited the Grand Canyon twice before, but only had time to give it a lick and promise.....on Wednesday we were determined to see all the view points between Desert View and Mather Point.  One might think "Well, it's the Grand Canyon....doesn't it look the same no matter where you stand?".......uhhhh....nope!  We were off in the VW around 10 am heading to the first 'point' of the day......Navajo Point, which is a little over 1 mile from Desert View.....in the picture below you can just see the Watchtower peaking over the crown on the hill.......just above TLE's head.........

 Navajo Point

.....there has been a fire burning for a couple of days off to the west, and that is the haze you see in most of the pictures I took Wednesday.

 Lipan Point

......our next 'point' of interest was Lipan Point, another few miles to the west of Navajo Point.....we observed numerous brave souls climbing rocks here and at Mather Point......

 TLE's new necklace.....made by a lovely Navajo girl

 Moran Point Pano

 Grand View

 If you look closely you can see a hiking trail threading its way along the right side of the wash....that's got to be 2,000' + lower than we were at the point

.....at almost, if not all of the vista points there were trailheads for numerous trails which wend their way slowly downward to the Colorado River......

......the 'Grandview Trail will probably be the first trail we hike as early as next week.....this is a 6 mile roundtrip hike to Horseshoe Mesa and back.  Many of the trails in use today were built by miners of a bygone era in order to access their claims, and some were created by Native Americans centuries ago......

Mather Point (near the South Rim Visitor's Center)....more brave souls off the trail tempting fate

.....ultimately we arrived at the South Rim Visitor's Center near Mather Point.......there are two buildings.....one is dedicated solely as a bookstore, and that is where we obtained our copy of 'Hiking Grand Canyon National Park' by Ron Adkison, a 255 page exhaustive review of all the trails in GCNP......as I suspected there are probably more hikes and miles than we will be able to cover in our 4+ months here, but we shall give it our best shot when the weather permits, and our bodies are willing.  After the bookstore we wandered over to the second building which houses a lot of information and history about the Grand Canyon.......

 The South Rim Visitor's center relief map.....Lake Powell in the upper right, and Lake Mead in the lower left

 The 1921-23 expeditions of the Grand Canyon by the USGS (U.S. Geological Survey) at river level were done in 900 lb. wooden boats

.....by the time we finished with the second building it was after 1 pm, and we needed to do some shopping at the Market Place supermarket (includes a Deli, a large outdoor equipment section, and a large grocery department).  There are a few more 'points' we will visit next week when we return for our official, lengthy Delaware North orientation meeting next Wednesday (Yaqi Point, Yavapai Point, Hopi Point, Mohave Point, Hermits Rest, Maricopa Point, etc.).....we have only just begun!

After we finished shopping, and had stowed our spoils in the Beetle we went back into the Deli to have lunch......at 50% off their listed prices I don't think there is a less expensive eating option anywhere in the GCNP....we ordered a Pizza Supreme, normally $20+.....our cost, just over $10 including drinks.  It was actually a very good pizza.....we ate about half of it at the Deli, and put the remainder in a 'dogie box' to take home for future consumption.

I might note that cell phone service.....primarily broadband coverage, is very erratic at the Market Plaza.....it would range from a high of 2 bars of 3G to 1 bar of 1X , and never really stabilized.  It makes me grateful we have such good coverage at Desert View.

By the time we finished eating it was getting on to 2:30 pm so we began the 45 minute 26 mile drive back to Desert View.  We've gotten a nice overview of about half the vista points, and have noted most of the trailheads between Desert View and Mather Point.  We were home a little after 3:15 with smiles on our collective faces......a nice first day of site seeing!

Thanks for stopping by!

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