Lake Powell, Rainbow Bridge, and the Navajo Monument

After having spent many days in the remote reaches of southern Utah, I landed in the outpost of civilization called Page, Arizona. Page came into existence as the home for workers constructing the Glen Canyon Dam, and is largely a tourist hub now. I went there so that I could go on a boat ride to the Rainbow Bridge National Monument.

The Rainbow Bridge is a spectacular sandstone arch that is culturally important to the Navajo. (It is said that Navajos will not walk under the bridge.) One of the compromises in the construction of the Glen Canyon Dam was that this bridge would not be drowned (although other places important to the Navajo, such as the confluence of the Colorado and San Juan Rivers, were drowned.

While it is possible to hike to the Rainbow Bridge, most people take a boat to see the bridge. Due to the fairly low lake levels, this is currently an all-day (7 hour) outing. (At higher water levels it can be done in 4-5 hours.) The captain on my tour was an old hand with many stories, and the usual geology lessons that occur on guided tours and ranger presentations in this part of the country. After visiting the bridge, he took the boat (capacity 150 or so) up an extremely narrow side canyon, in which the boat scraped the sides of the canyon...

Upon return, I immediately drove off to the Navajo Reservation, which is home (among many other things) to the Navajo National Monument. While it is in the Navajo Nation, the purpose of this monument is to preserve to important AnasaziAncestral Puebloan ruins, Betatakin and Keet Seel.

Unfortunately, the monument's services, including access to Keet Seel, don't really start until around Memorial Day, so I was limited to camping (in the free campground), and enjoying the sunset.

Cruising northern Arizona

One day we drove down to Sedona to see the red rocks there.

We also made a brief visit to Walnut Canyon National Monument. This is a place with pre-Columbian archaeological remains. However, due to a rock slide, most of it was inaccessible (not that we didn't get a nice picture out of it).

We took a scenic drive from Flagstaff to Las Vegas. Along the way were several series of safety-related Burma Shave signs.

We also stopped briefly at Lake Meade.


Once ensconced in Las Vegas, we enjoyed dinner at Bouchon, and then went to the Penn and Teller magic show.

The next day it was time to send Herself back home, while I continued on to Zion National Park in Utah.

Grand Canyon: Sunrise with Herself

Since Herself still had jet lag, we arose early the next morning and took in the sunrise too. It was extremely misty, so the photography wasn't the greatest... It was also cold, near freezing.

After the sunrise tour, we had breakfast at El Tovar, the classic hotel located on the rim. We then spent the rest of the morning driving along the South Rim.

We ended up in Flagstaff, which we used as a base for seeing a few other things in northern Arizona.

Grand Canyon: Sunset with Herself

The day after my 8 days hiking down in the Big Ditch, I was joined by Herself. Of course, we first enjoyed a lovely (if chilly) sunset at the South Rim.

waiting on the rim for Herself

It was a nice sunset...


After the sunset, we enjoyed a dinner at the Arizona Room.

Grand Canyon: Day 8, the return

And on the 8th day, we worked. We got up early (4:30 AM wakeup call) in order to beat the heat. We left camp at 5:45. The first of us reached the rim around 9, the last at around 11:30. Yours Truly arrived around 10:30, near the back of the pack.

this part's not too steep

ooh, some sun!

the canyon's getting a bit narrow up here

not a lot of great options for going up here...

got over that bit, more to go...

the river's not really visible from up here...

... but it sometimes is

bear rests from the arduous uphill slog

vistas are looking more rim-like now

remember the guiding star from day 6?

ah, it wasn't that hard after all!