Today I reached the most westerly point in this trip: the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.

The ride from Page to the North Rim takes about 3 hours with some amazing scenic points along the way; the photo above was taken from the Navajo Bridge which spans the Colorado River.

Unusually for my road trips, I’m spending 2 nights in the same place.  The side effect was that I could leave my big travel bag at the hotel.  While it’s nice to travel a little lighter, what I didn’t think about, until I got into park, was that my rain and cold weather gear was in the big bag!

I had been warned that the North Rim tended to be chilly and it was.  When I stopped at Jacob’s Lake to gas up, the temperature had dropped a bit, but I thought I would be ok.  As I continued to ascend, I realized I was wrong.  There’s a few little shops along the way so I stopped and purchased a sweatshirt – temperature problem solved, or so I thought.

Continuing towards the North Rim, the next thing I encountered was rain – just a little at first, then much heavier.  My new sweatshirt was turning into a sponge.  When I reached the gate for the park, the rain was pouring down; I seriously considered turning around, but with only 12 miles to the rim, I decided to push on.

When I reached the rim, I was pretty much soaked, at least on the front side.  At the gift shop I picked up a parka.  Fortunately I had a t-shirt in one of the saddle bags – that t-shirt, combined with my new parka, meant that at least my top half was dry.

Unfortunately, the rain clouded most of the views and I wasn’t up for much of a hike, even with my new attire.  I did take a few pictures, but with the limited view, it wasn’t long before I headed out of the park.  Going back thru the rain storms wasn’t too bad – the new parka was quite nice – and by the time reached the hotel, I was mostly dry.

Even with the rain, it was great day of riding; the North Rim was my destination, but the highlight was the ride to and from the park.  Today’s pictures start in the photo stream here.