Day 12: Grand Canyon National Park - the South Rim

We met our guide from the Grand Canyon Learning Institute at 8:30 this morning. Elaine is a long time fan of the Grand Canyon, finally making the switch from accountant to trail guide some years ago. Because she is employed by the GCLI and does private hire guiding, she lives outside the Park. However it's a rule that if you work for the Park Service or Xanterra (who are contracted to run the shops, hotels and restaurants) you have to live at the Park.

Our first stop was Kolb Studio, which is perched right on the edge of the Canyon. The Kolb brothers took photos of visitors, made movies of their exploits in the Canyon and collected the toll for using the Bright Angel Trail. Emory and Ellsworth Kolb would take photos of the visitors as they went down the Bright Angel Trail (think in terms of the modern roller coaster photos taken by the amusement parks), and have the photos developed and ready for sale by the time the visitors were back up from the bottom. Because of our private guide, we were able to fully tour the living quarters of the house which has been beautifully restored a la early 20th century.

We continued along the Rim Trail all the way to Grandview Point, eating lunch outside the El Tovar Lodge. Along the way we learned about different types of stone in the Grand Canyon, Fred Harvey and the Harvey Girls, Verkamps, the Havasupai and Mary Jane Coulter. The free shuttle bus took us back to the Bright Angel Lodge and Hopi House, where we saw a demonstration of Hopi music and dancing. A group of young people from the Hopi Nation performed the Eagle Dance, Basket Dance, Butterfly Dance and Hoop Dance, as well as Native American sign language. After a great photo op, we walked back to Maswick Lodge via the Mule Barn, the railroad, the old Power Station and one of the Park's Community Centers. Although it would have been great to spend more time with Elaine, but we had to go back and get ready for supper at El Tovar.

You know you're in a fancy restaurant when the first thing they show you is the dessert selection! Our reservation was for 8:00 pm, but we weren't seated until nearly 8:30. Having seen the dessert table, we were all very conscious to save room and we ordered lightly. Most of us ordered a lemony pasta with vegetables and shrip, Charles had Mahi-Mahi and Bethany couldn't resist another steak. Waiting for dessert to be delivered, Ashley fell asleep, so I had to poke her in the arm (with hindsight, I should have let her sleep so we could have stolen her dessert). Again we were fairly unified in ordering dessert, with most having flourless chocolate cake with walnut crust, but I had a butterscotch chantilly tart and Anna had lemon creme brulee. No wonder we slept well! It was too close to midnight when we got back to Maswick Lodge, and we were to meet Elaine the next morning at 7:00 am to hike down into the Canyon.