Still getting through pictures from the AZ trip, but here are some pics from along the Rainbow Rim Trail on the North Rim of The Grand Canyon.
The waning minutes of the day from our campsite. My tent was about 40 miles from cell service, 22 miles from the nearest paved road and about 20 feet from the edge of the canyon. This is not a good place to camp if you are a sleep walker. For everyone else, this is soooo freaking awesome.
The Rainbow Rim Trail is 18 miles long and easily ridable in a day as an out-and-back if you are “on the pedals”. Personally, I think you would be quite the bonehead to do so as this ride deserves to take plenty of time to stop and smell the flowers, take in the views and generally just soak the whole place in. You can hammer on any trail, but it’s not everyday you get to cruise along the rim of the Grand Canyon. We were camped at Locust Point and did the trail in two days. Day one was an out-and-back to Parissawampitts Point. It is a tricky name to say and we found unending pleasure from seeing how many ways we could butcher the name. Day two was Locust Point to Timp Point and back.
The trail undulates mildly for most of the time as you gradually descend out to the points and then climb back away from the points before contouring around to the mid-point drainage. When you do not have the Grand Canyon vistas, you have some sweet singletrack through the mixed pine and aspen forest.
Jeff cruising along
Once out to the end of the trail at “Popabeertopitts Point” we spent about 30 minutes hiking/scrambling out to the far-tip of the of point for an even better view of the canyon. Here we enjoyed a sandwich and a little something extra we had packed in our camelbak bladders. Ahh still nice and cold.
One thing we all firmly agreed upon was that it did not suck to be us today.
The next morning we set off at just about the crack of dawn for an out-and-back ride in the other direction to Timp Point. The morning light was pretty incredible.
Once again there were plenty of picture taking going on and generally enjoying the stops just as much as the GOs.
Jeff on the Go
We also came across at buffalo kill that was presumably made by a mountain lion. Amazing to think about the power of these big cats to take down a buffalo. Armed only with cameras we were certainly not the apex predator out here.
Hello Kitty Toothpicks
The views from Timp Point (the terminous of the trail) were once again impressive. The time of day can totally determine what you can see because of the way the light shifts along the canyon walls. We noticed a small speck of white in the distance and were able to determine that it was Thunder Springs, an impressive waterfall that comes right out of the side of canyon from an underground river. I did some Googling on this place and I might just have to dust off my hiking boots for a return trip up here.
The “back” part of the ride went fairly quickly but we did stop to smell some of these.
And check out this guy.
We were back at camp at brunch time and Jeff started busting up camp as he had to leave. It was great getting to hang out with Jeff (aka MTB Mayor of Kernville). Later that day Bill and I would get in another ride, but that is another story.