Today started with the Grand Canyon being total "socked in." I got up for sunrise but quickly discovered there would be no visible sunrise this morning. Three additional checks during the early morning hours rendered the same results. The good news was that meant sleeping in. The bad news was that by the time the clouds disappeared, the good lighting was gone also.
We finally got up about nine, had a leisurely breakfast in the hotel room, and then dressed for the dreaded cold. We drove the West Side Drive
and photographed at Trail Overlook, Maricopa Point, Powell Point, and Hopi Point. By the time we finished at Hopi Point, it was very obvious
that we were terribly overdressed. The temperatures were in the upper 30's and the sun was shining. We decided to cut
our tour on the West Side Drive short,
return to the hotel to get rid of some of the warmest layers, and then return to shoot a spot Carol liked from yesterday before all the snow melted.
I pulled into a turnout to turn around, looked across the road, and saw a herd of elk sitting among the pinyon pine trees.
We tried shooting the elk from every possible angle, but elk surrounded by small pinyon pine trees doesn't compare with the elk we've photographed
with the Rockies as a backdrop. We were very glad that we saw the elk, but the photographs are totally unremarkable. That pretty much sums up the trip so far.
We're having a great time and enjoying the Grand Canyon, but the images aren't very good.
After we returned to the hotel and changed clothes, we found the spot Carol wanted to re-photograph at Pipe Creek Vista. Most of the snow was gone, but we found some new angles to try. Then, we returned to Mather Point and shot all the overlooks along the cliff there. Mather Point is where most visitors see the Grand Canyon for the first time. With all the new landscaping and parking lots, it bears little resemblance to what I remember from previous trips. The overlooks haven't changed a lot, but all the fencing has been strengthened and upgraded to try to save the tourists from their own stupidity. We've seen plenty of tourist behavior that fits into the "stupidity" category; especially when it comes to driving the roads.
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| Pipe Creek Vista | Mather Point |
We returned to Hopi Point to wait for sunset and hoped that the sun would find a place to set between all the layers of clouds. It wasn't looking very promising. We began the day with high hopes for sunset because thin cirrus clouds were covering the entire area. If the sun wasn't blocked at the horizon for sunset, we were expecting a spectacular sunset. As it turned out, the sunset was somewhere in between. It wasn't a total loss because the sun found some openings between the clouds as it set, but there were enough clouds to prevent the sun from lighting up the clouds at sunset. We stayed until the bitter end, but I think we enjoyed talking to the people around us as much as we enjoyed shooting the sunset.
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| Hopi Point | Hopi Sunset |
We tried the cafeteria in the Maswik Lodge for dinner. It was about what we expected from a cafeteria.
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