Thursday November 9, 2023  Kaibab and the Elk

My human let me out today.  She stood back and watched.  I saw two big black birds.  I wanted them.  I stalked them.  My human picked me up.

It was 35 degrees this morning.  After a good breakfast, we headed over to the South Kaibab Trailhead.  We saw the sign but they do not allow parking.  Hmmm, shuttle only.  Hmmmm, we parked down the street a bit and started walking the Rim Trail and realized it would be a long walk before we even started the hike.  So, back to the truck.  We drove to the Visitor Center and hopped on a shuttle.  As it pulled up to the trailhead, a herd of elk sauntered by.  There is a mule station right here, so something tells me they hang out here for the free food.

The Kaibab Trail starts as a series of steep switchbacks.  After all, you are going down into the canyon.  We had no intention of hiking down to the river, but wanted to enjoy a fair hike without killing ourselves.  After a while, the trail follows the side of the wall.  No tripping here.  You can go down 30 feet, or 300 feet, or…. And you will never get back up to the trail; thus the helicopter rescue we saw here yesterday.  It is cold in the shade, but the sun is out.  When Spouse declared he was done, I continued on down to ‘Ooh Ah Point’, obviously named for the views.  You can crawl up the rocks and get a picture… or you can fall and never be seen again!  I got someone to take my picture as I was wedged between the rocks… safely.  Hoofing it back up to Spouse was slow.  This was a steep part of the trail.  Slow… slow… slow… Can you hear my heart pounding?  Back to Spouse, we shed our jackets into my backpack and began the slow ascent.  A lot more people are coming in now.  We are glad we got an early start.

We hopped back on the shuttle, then did a bit more walking on the Rim Trail.  The views never get boring.

Back at camp, we were surprised to see a Bull elk sipping off the hose that was in an RV.  Beautiful critter!  Like right there!  Looks like that RV has a leak.  Maybe more will come in to enjoy it!

I am a bit surprised at the amount of people that are here.  It is quite busy.

Tomorrow, we head to Phoenix to visit our friends Jake and Lynn.  Jake has had some major health issues so we thought a visit might be good.  And then we will head home.