Vacation, day 4

[sauergeek]

Because we were boneheads, and didn't make hotel reservations in advance, we had to shift hotels this morning. The Yavapai Lodge had no rooms for tonight. However, the Bright Angel Lodge, our original choice for hotel, had one room available, but not our original choice of room. The one room they had is called a hiker's room, and is quite pleasant as one. However, don't mistake a hiker's room for a proper hotel room. There is a separate building[1] of hiker's rooms. None of them have bathing facilities in the room; instead, the building (12 rooms?) shared a men's room, a women's room, a full-size bathroom, and a shower. There was a noisy sticking exterior door just outside the room, and the entire bed shook if you twitched even a little. I wouldn't sign up for such a room normally, but beggars can't be choosers[2].

Breakfast was at the Bright Angel Restaurant. We both ordered the Bright Angel breakfast: 2 eggs (scrambled for me, sunny side up for jiapa), home fries, meat (two sausage links for me, a slice of ham for jiapa), bread (English muffin for me, wheat toast for jiapa), plus OJ. It was all good stuff, though jiapa's eggs were somewhat undercooked: part of whites were still clear. My scrambled eggs were thoroughly cooked. Today's eggs had a similar off flavor to yesterday's, so I suspect that odd flavor comes from the chickens. Now I'm curious what kind of chickens these eggs come from. jiapa's ham was pan-fried, nicely browned on both sides. The sausage was well-seasoned, and free of boingy bits. There was no maple syrup on the table, so I could not do my usual trick of pouring maple syrup on the sausage. The English muffins came with honey, but didn't try that as an alternate.

After breakfast, we looked over what trails we wanted to take. We briefly considered taking the first 1.5 miles of the Bright Angel trail down into the canyon. However, the trails are too icy to even consider going down into the canyon without crampons, and I don't want to bother trying to rent them. We also considered taking a mule ride down into the canyon, but that was restricted to people under 200 lbs including all the gear they were carrying. No way I could manage that; I'm nearly 200 lbs with no gear at all; adding clothes, boots, sunglasses, and camera bag, I'd be distinctly over. Instead, we decided to take the 8-mile Hermit's Rest trail west along the rim of the canyon. We were both quite certain we wouldn't be able to hike the entire distance, given the ice[3]. Fortunately, there is a shuttle bus that nearly parallels the trail, so when our legs gave out, we could pick up the bus.

I did think to bring along a key item: sunblock. I got lightly sunburned in Zion Canyon yesterday, despite temperatures in the 40s. Today is no warmer, but it's clear enough that I would likely get even more burned today, so it's sunblock time. In addition to sunblocking my bald(ing) spot and my face, I bought and wore a broad-brimmed hat. I already own one, but did not think to bring it along on this trip; now I have two.

We walked the first segment of the route to Hermit's Rest, from the Village Route Transfer stop to Trailview Overlook. We admired the view from that point, including the nearly dozen visible switchbacks of the Bright Angel trail. After seeing how steep the trail was and all the switchbacks, I was very glad to have avoided the Bright Angel trail today. We took the bus for the next segment to Maricopa Point, then walked the next two segments to Powell and Hopi Points. There was a substantial detour between Maricopa and Powell Points to go around the still-contaminated head of an old uranium mine, the Orphan Mine. Unfortunately, at Powell Point, there was a medium-sized herd of obnoxious, insufficiently supervised junior high school age boys. At this point, we gave up on the hiking, and stuck entirely to the bus. We deliberately skipped Mohave Point to avoid the gaggle of obnoxious junior high schoolers. We stopped off, and admired the view, at each of The Abyss, Pima Point, and the end of the line, Hermit's Rest.

At every stop, we took lots of pictures, though everything started looking the same after a while. One thing for future Grand Canyon travelers: bring binoculars! There was one couple with a set of strong binoculars, and who were kind enough to lend them to other people. The binoculars give spectacular views, with detail that just isn't there, even in the long lens for my camera. The Colorado River is surprisingly green. There was a sandy-looking beach in one stretch of the Colorado, though I can't imagine anyone swimming in it, even in the summer -- the river is supposed to be dangerously fast. There is a long set of rapids called Granite Rapids, which is audible from canyon rim[4], so the noise must be deafening on the river itself.

No hermit could get a rest at Hermit's Rest. It was chosen the end of the shuttle bus line because Hermit's Rest used to be yet another Grand Canyon resort. This former resort was set up by the railroad company to provide a resort near a trail that they cut down into the canyon, which in turn was cut to avoid trail tolls[5] on the Bright Angel trail. Now, the main resort building is a snack bar and gift shop, along with some offices. The gift shop has some items that are only sold there, which as far as I can tell are all Hermit's Rest logo items, like T-shirts and shot glasses.

We took the bus straight back from Hermit's Rest to Village Transfer Station. We arrived at around 4 PM, just in time to check into our new hotel room and collapse for a couple hours. Walking at 7,000' is tiring -- doubly so on ice, and especially for out-of-shape people. We left the room shortly before 6 PM, in time to see the sunset. We found a nice point[6] overlooking the canyon with a clear view west. I shot ~70 sunset photos; jiapa's camera ran out of battery.

By 6:45, the light had faded so much that I could take no more pictures. We walked from sunset shooting to the nearby Arizona Room[7] for dinner. I had their tenderloin with cumin onion rings, green beans, mashed potatoes, and Arizona caesar salad. The Arizona caesar salad includes corn, corn chip strips, black beans, and a somewhat zippier dressing than a regular Caesar. The onion "rings" were more like onion strings; they were cut very thin. The cumin in the breading was subtle but apparent, and blended well with both the breading and the cooked onion. The green beans still had some crunch to them; the kitchen avoided the sin of overcooking them. However, the star of the show was the tenderloin. I regularly describe the best sushi as providing orgasms for my mouth; this tenderloin did exactly the same thing. I ordered the tenderloin medium-rare; however, the best spots were the rarest. If I do this again, I'll order it rare. Now I want to sample more beef tenderloin elsewhere.

jiapa had the Arizona caesar salad and prime rib, which claimed to be mustard-rosemary, but neither of us could tell that there was mustard or rosemary involved. It came with a zucchini-mushroom veggie medley, and a baked potato. On the side, it had sour cream with chives, horseradish, and broth for dipping. I talked jiapa into trying the prime rib with horseradish[8], and while she claimed she wasn't sure if she liked it, she kept dipping beef bits into it, so it must not have been all bad.

I ordered a Mirror Pond Pale Ale, from Deschutes Brewery. It's the best beer I've had so far on this trip. Mirror Pond is a medium amber, with solid malt flavor. The hops are secondary -- but a close second -- to the malt, and wonderfully flowery.

We were both too full for dessert.

Tomorrow, we plan on making a 9 AM ranger talk if we get up in time. Afterward we'll grab breakfast at the El Tovar dining room, make a stop by the historic Kolb studio, and then we're off to the Hoover Dam.

1. There may be more than one such building; I didn't check. The Bright Angel Lodge includes a main hotel, which has traditional hotel rooms (including toilet and at least a shower, if not a full bath in each room); hiker rooms, described above; and separate cabins.

2. The quilt on the bed had a cigarette burn in it. However, the room was clean, and aside from shaking, the bed was otherwise quite firm. If you do go for a hiker room, try to get one of the interior ones; the ones near the building exit doors can hear those exit doors entirely too well. Getting a shower in the morning involved only a brief wait for one of the two bath/shower rooms to open up.

3. Given the shape we're both in, we probably couldn't have made the 16-mile round trip even without the ice.

4. I can't remember if the rapids are audible at Pima Point or at The Abyss, but there are signs telling you about it at the appropriate place. To hear the rapids, there has to be relatively little wind, which happened while we were there.

5. A clever prospector held mining claims along the Bright Angel trail, and charged $1 per person to go down. Eventually his mining claims were found to be bogus and he lost his rights to the land: he had salted the claim.

6. The point is immediately behind the El Tovar hotel; it has a flagpole in it. The view will only improve as summer gets closer.

7. While the Arizona Room is technically part of Bright Angel Lodge, its only door opens outside, well away from any entrance to the hotel.

8. For anything resembling roast beef -- and prime rib does -- horseradish works like wasabi for beef. Yummy. Horseradish is far too strong for tenderloin, though.