FRIDAY, 14 NOVEMBER 2025

(Grand Canyon Village, AZ)

Another gentle 8am start, although I had been awake for a while, reading. Coffee on the balcony again, although this time without the deer.  The recent forecast had been for clouds all day, but it was mostly blue skies when Andrew pulled back the curtain.

We went to breakfast, and on the way back a bank of clouds seemed to be rolling in. We got ready for today’s hike, which theoretically was going to be less challenging. To be fair, it is definitely less challenging, but our legs are a little worn out by now, so the end result may well be the same…

We left from the hotel, discovering that the clouds had disappeared, and headed for the Greenway route (a shared footway/cycleway) through the village area and past the mules. Before we got very far, the sound of the train reverberated through the village and we stopped to watch the train arrive. There were lots of good natured people on it today, as many waved back at us, with one even toasting us with their glass.

The Greenway winds through the Ponderosa pine forest, from the village, to the market plaza where the general store is located, and onward to the visitor centre. In fact, it goes much further, all the way to the village of Tusayan, outside the park, but we were only going to the visitor centre, some 3 miles from our lodge. Very few people were on the trail. It’s not exactly a touristy thing to do, but we love the simple pleasure of the peace, tranquility, vanilla scent of the pines (yes, I went and hugged a tree), and the chirping of various birds along the way. We saw white breasted nuthatches, flying around and looking for insects in the tree bark, we heard (but didn’t see) a woodpecker, and there were plenty of dark-eyed juncos moving around in the ground and amongst the trees. We also passed a board informing us about the Transcanyon Waterline project.

In the middle of the walk we called in for a browse, and to buy a couple of bananas, at the general store. Much of it hasn’t changed in years, including the wooden signs on the outside which still advertise camera film and straw hats…quite when the latter was a big seller, I’m not sure.

At the visitor centre we got a coffee, and I had a muffin, which drew the attention of the local sparrows. At one point, five of them were lined up on the opposite side of our table, waiting to clean up the crumbs. Most got bored and went back to picking seeds off the bushes. The visitor centre also has a nice reminder that the original (and current) inhabitants of the Grand Canyon were/are numerous different Native American nations.

From there we went to the rim and walked three miles back along the rim to village area. Many of the key overlooks were busy. These are close to parking lots and are the ‘known’ viewpoints, but between these areas the number of prime rapidly decreased, while the views remain just as good, sometimes better, although that’s obviously subjective. We could also see the route we took yesterday and where we descended to, near O’Neill Butte. 

We got back to our room mid-afternoon, after what turned out to be the longest hike of our trip. No wonder we were tired. We sat in the balcony, with tired feet, aching backs and legs that didn’t want to go anywhere else. The cloud was moving back in, so sunset looked like it would again be washed out. But then the sun came out a bit. We decided that we ought to go to the rim…just as we got ready, the sun went back in. We pondered our options and settled in going for an early dinner. The pizza pub seemed like a good plan. We were so early, that the sky wasn’t completely dark by the time wandered back with our head torches lighting the way. We enjoy the contrast of it being sunny and hot during the day, but properly cold as soon as the sun goes down.

And with that, our hiking for this trip comes to an end. My records show that in eleven days we have hiked a total of 53.1 canyon miles (which are definitely harder than your average mile), gaining 8,528 feet of elevation along the way. This has taken us 41 hours and 18 minutes, including stops for photos (there were quite a lot!), lunch breaks, stops to let other hikers pass, and plenty of stops simply to take in the views which is, after all, why we are here. But it’s not surprising that our bodies are feeling just a little biit tired. 

The video from today is here: https://vimeo.com/1137121112