May 31, part 1 -- exploring some more of the Grand Canyon's north rim

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Here is a link to the interactive expedition map.


Breakfast in the lodge on the north rim of the Grand Canyon.  We got to sit right by the window.

This was tasty as well as beautiful.  The granola was still crunchy, and the berries were good.

Wow, eh?  What a view to have outside your breakfast room window!

Lupin.  I took multiple images, but the camera was intent on focusing on the leaves rather than the flowers.

On the 31st we got into the car to explore the view points in the eastern part of the north rim of Grand Canyon National Park.  It's been so long that it's hard to remember just where we were, when.   (alas....)

Perhaps this is near Point Imperial?

To a midwesterner, who takes "ample moisture from the sky" as a matter of course, this looks like a very desolate landscape....................  (I wish I'd tried more of these pics with the phone.  The camera really does not do a good job with haze.  The phone does a much better job.)

This next image is zoomed in on the upper left corner of the previous.

Despite the clearly-apparent overall dryness of this region, it was remarkably green in late May.

Not Michigan!

We saw very few places in the southwest that could be Michigan.  This is one of them.  There are lots of trees, nearly all evergreens, on the plateau north of the Grand Canyon.  Northern Michigan is full of evergreens.

This is at Point Royal.  I did not visit the picnic and wedding site, but I read online that it can accommodate 40 people.  If you are planning a small destination wedding, this may be your location.

Long needles!  This part of this plant has what I think will eventually be next year's cones, as well as bundles of new baby needles.

Also visible in the first pic of this pine?, as a small blurry yellow blob somewhat southwest of the center of that image, was this spider.  I am very pleased that the web shows up as much as it does.  Look for it as very faint white-ish lines with tiny blobs of something white (glue to catch bugs?)  The Spider is in the center of the web, with rings of web rippling out toward the edges of the image.  This is a different image, focused on the spider rather than on the tree's new growth.

I can't remember any more if this is the same sort of tree (or even the same tree), but if I had to bet, I'd say it was, with a cone that will be a this-year cone.

I think this is a different kind of tree.  The needles are shorter.

Clouds are going to be a theme of this post.....  The sky was clear and blue to the south as we began the day.  (As you can see in the first pics in this post.)  As the morning went on, it became cloudy, and stormy, south of the Grand Canyon.

We've seen what I believe is this kind of plant several times in several places in the southwest.

Traveling along the eastern part of the north rim we saw our first glimpses of the river which carved all of this.  You can just see it, near the middle of this image, as a faint blue line.  (The next image is a closer view.)

Water!  I believe this is the Colorado River.

Another sliver of the unfathomable vastness that is the Grand Canyon.

Looking at these pics, seven months (!!!) after they were taken, I couldn't figure out what that blue triangle was......  Then I zoomed in (as I can, in the Photoshop Elements editor), and remembered that's the distance, behind a big gap in the rock.  A big hole...............

This next images shows the fence on top of that rock.  You can walk out there.  Note also the enormous cracks in the rock...................  Someday this will all fall down.  But when?  Having seen this, we did not walk out there.  (See the river, through the hole?)

We know it's the case that park system employees are charged with keeping the tourists relatively safe.  I'm sure someone decides whether various places are "safe."  But I don't know how they decide, and I don't know if I agree that the methods used are ... adequate.......

As you see, others are out there, enjoying the view.  I am sure there's a good view of the river from there.  (Again, note cracks..........)

I can't imagine what it must have been like to address this landscape on foot, carrying whatever you had that you required in order to continue forward.  So many nearly-insurmountable obstacles, with the dryness near the top of the list of problems to be faced............

We stood there.  We saw this with our own eyes..................


Here is a link to the next post about the Grand Canyon trip.

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