sunburst on Battleship rock in "The Box," North Kaibab Trail
The Grand Canyon... what an awesome place! Backpacking it makes you forget all the troubles and worries of the working world, allowing you to dwell in the moment (particularly on your aching legs and sore knees). Fortunately, when you spend a day at the bottom, you get to enjoy a little of it's splendor without the constrains of carrying all your belongings and mentally reminding yourself over and over "you can do it".So what exactly is it like at the bottom of the canyon? Rightly, I can't honestly describe it and my pictures/video don't do it justice. That does not mean I did not try to capture it as you will soon see, it just means that no camera can put you there... in that immense space that strangely feels so small, with towering peaks deceiving your well-tuned depth perception, particularly when you realize you can't even see the rim from which you came.
With what did we fill our day at the bottom? We had breakfast at Phantom Ranch. Then, leaving most of our belongings at our campsite, we did a morning walk about 1.5 miles through "the box" on the North Kaibab Trail. Compared to the day before, it was a flat hike that followed the Bright Angel Creek. It's recommended that you make your way through the box before mid-day as the towering walls of the canyon are like an oven that gradually heats during the day and is stiflingly hot from afternoon through evening. Headed North it was mostly shady and we turned back when it looked like shade would be hard to find up ahead.
testing my slow shutter on the Bright Angel Creek
(Once I figure out how, I will add a button to enable buying prints of these puzzle/collage photos via Fotomoto)
2 photos morphed together and made HDR
having fun with HDR and layering photos, created in Photoshop
Up Next: The Sky in the Grand Canyon - Phantom Ranch Part 2
This is a series on our 2012 trip. In case you missed them, here are my previous posts:
All photos copyright Katrina Kouba Boles
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