Grand Canyon part 2

The best part of my morning was that it did not begin at 4:30 am. Some of the other riders had made a plan to get up at 4:30 so that they could watch the sunrise when they started their 20 mile hike. This plan fell apart quickly however when people stayed up to watch the metior shower. So on my third and final day off on the trip I managed to get to sleep in until 7:30, which was great because it was a good two and a half hours after we had normally been getting up, but I still could have used a few extra hours. So when we did get up we went and and breakfast at one of the canyon shops. It wasn’t great, but I got eggs and bacon and a biscuit so i really enjoyed it as a break from cold cereal and a bagel.
After breakfast we got to hiking. Originally we were going to do the bright angel trail, but we were starting later than we had wanted to, and someone heard from someone that the Kaibab trail had even better views, and was a shorter hike so we decided to do that. We took the shuttle to the trailhead, and started down the path. And we really did start DOWN the path. You could just look down and see the path and all of it’s switchbacks. I don’t know how this trail compared to any of the others in terms of popularity but there certainly were a good number of hiker on the trail with us, though it wasn’t so many that I ever felt like it was too crowded.
Our first stop on he trail was ceder ridge. It was only about a mile and a half long but the elevation dropped well over a thousand feet so it was a fairly steep hike down. When we got to this point we met a park ranger who told us that it was her job to discourage people from trying to go any further down the trail. This kind of irked me, and made me more resolved to go on farther, however I guess she was good at her job because of the group of 9 that I went with only 5 of us kept going down past ceder ridge, and three turned back after about a half a mile leaving only two of us to go down to skeleton point. The hike down didn’t seem that bad to me. It’s true that it was getting hotter and their wasn’t much shade at all, but any other day of the week at that time I figured I be physically exerting myself out in the blaizing sun. So at least when I was hiking I didn’t have a miserable head wind. When Chris and I got to skeleton point we stopped for a second snack, and were suprized when two of our other riders actually showed up. Max and Emma joined us which was unexpected because they weren’t a part of the origional 9 riders we had started with. They had come completely independently with their own group, most of whom had also been scared off by the ranger. So we joins up with them and had a nice little group for our hike back up to the top. The hike back up obviously took alot longer than the hike down because we had to climb back up the thousands of feet we climbed down, but considering all that, I really didn’t think it was a difficult hike at all.
After we climbed out of the big hole, chris and I decided it was time for a proper meal so we went back to the canyons grocery shop and had sandwitch. Once our bellies wer filled we both decided the best thing we could do with our day was to take a nap. I went back to the campsite to take my mid day slumber, but when I got there Gillian said she was heading up to the rim for a nap so I decided to join. I’m glad I did because when we got up to the edge there were a few guys playing their guitar which made the whole napping experience even better. The only reason we left was because we had told people we would meet tem for dinner at 5:30. So when quarter of 6 rolled around we decided we had better go. The problem was however that while we were gone our friends decided they wanted to wait on dinner until after sunset, so we decided to go right back to the rim to see if the musicians were still playing, and then wait for sunset. Unfortunately by the time we got back the free concert was over and the guys had left, so we just sat around and enjoyed the views until the sun went down.
After sunset we went and got a late dinner, headed back to the campsite for the evening’s campfire and a few beverages, and the turned in because we knew we would have to ride again this morning.