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.
Ticket to Ride 