Rim 2 Rim

We decided to hike the Grand Canyon from Rim to Rim last Saturday with another couple in our neighborhood. We left Friday afternoon around 5pm and arrived at the North Rim Lodge around 11:30pm. Our friend's uncle had arranged a cabin for us all to sleep in. We slept for about 4.5 hours and arose at 4:15am. It was bitter cold with frost everywhere and we were told that within an hour of our starting the hike it actually snowed at the lodge. Needless to say we spent the first hour of the hike with our hands in our armpits just to keep them warm. There was a 30% chance of thunderstorms predicted that day, but we never saw a drop, and instead we regularly had cloud cover from the sun and it stayed below 90° all day. We could not have asked for a better day to do this hike. We trained for several weeks before this trip by going on long distance walks pushing the kids in the stroller (even though we didn't take the kids on this one), but in reality this hike still destroyed every muscle in our legs. It took almost two days to recover our ability to walk normally. The hike was the most beautiful 25 miles of country I've ever seen.

Notice how alert and excited we look the morning of the hike. 

Our faces were far less full of energy when we finished.

This is the cabin we slept in.

Our friend crossing the river after a short detour to see Ribbon Falls.

Beautiful...and the blooming cacti are pretty too.

We chanced upon some wildlife too. I think this one was a hopi rattlesnake,

We had to stop and take a few pictures of the landscape.

This one might be a grand canyon rattlesnake, but I'm not certain. It was a only a few feet from the trail though. Watch where you step.

We even chanced upon a deer near the trail...even though I'm the one with the deer in the headlights look.

You can see the trail we came up. It leads into the trees in the middle of the canyon. After the trees the trail turns down to the right.

This was right near the end of the hike almost at the top of the Bright Angel trailhead. We even managed to run a little at the very end of the trail. It was an amazing experience!