In my own braggy bump: we originally booked a non rim cabin, because that was all that was available. On the advice of the booking agent, I’ve been checking twice a day for cancellations. . . and there was one! Yay! Now we’re in a rim cabin, 12 steps from the edge. Hopefully, someone else will cancel before Friday and I can get a cabin with a fireplace. There whether also looks good-- not California sunshine good, but not unbearable.
We were actually planning on pulling off the road at dusk to snuggle/ get to second base. I foresee no problems.
Linus Van Pelt, I actually hadn’t thought of sunscreen. I’ve got a can of the spray type from my summer trip to Fiji (as opposed to ye olde regulare suncreene), so I’ll be sure to bring that. Thank you for reminding me!
Some_User_Name, that’s over by the Sky Walk, right? We’ll be at the South Rim. That said, that’s a neat idea for a drive and may be worth keeping in mind for another trip (especially since that’s so much closer to Vegas).
Yea on the cancellation and good luck on the fireplace. There’s just something wonderfully comfortable (and romantic!) about a crackling fire on a chilly evening.
Ye olde regulare suncreene would probably be fine. It’s not like it’ll rip the skin off your face as soon as you step outside and a bit of scenery gazing isn’t likely to be much of a danger. But since many people don’t think of it at all during the winter months and you mentioned you might be doing some hiking… well I figured that a bit of precaution might be in order.
Uh… no… I’ve NEVER gotten fried by being silly enough to assume that cool winter weather in the mountains meant no sun danger. Really. Why do you ask?
I was there in October. We stayed at the Thunderbird Lodge, partial rim view (everything else was booked up) and it was awesome. We hiked/took the shuttle back from Hermit’s Rest, so it was easy on the rim. I made a vow to ride the mules down for my 50th.
I’m back and I’d just like to thank everyone for their advice! The drive ended up not being terrible bad- just a touch over 4 hours (and I wasn’t speeding that bad, I swear! :p).
So, my wish for snow came true. We got their at about 10 on Friday night and while their was a teeny bit of residual snow on the ground, the sky was super clear and we spend an hour or so in the cold stargazing. So pretty. It was crazy to think we were standing literally on the edge of the canyon, but couldn’t see it because it was so darned dark. Sort of amazing to know this giant, natural wonder was right there.
Saturday morning, we got up and watched the sunrise (my favorite panoramic pic here). Clouds were already starting to roll in for the upcoming storm, but it made for a pretty sunrise. Knowing the snow was coming, we went adventuring, which was beautiful (despite the snow flurries, me twisting my ankle, and the 60 mph wind gusts). Here’s a picture of another panorama off of Hermit Road.
Anyway, the weather started to get insane, so we headed back and hunkered down in our cabin. The cabins, by the way, are AMAZING. We were literally 12 steps from the rim of the canyon. SO AMAZING.
For a California girl like me, that weather was trippy. The wind was howling so badly that it was screeching. The snow was going sideways. Here’s an iPhone photo looking down in the canyon during one of the quick breaks in snow.
I have a little unfancy camera (Canon SD 4000) which has a “stitch” feature-- it helps you line up shot after shot (up to, I think, 26). Then, I took those individual pictures and stitched 'em together in Photoshop using the Photomerge feature.
They came out really well.
I have some fancy panorama software that lets me make truly enormous multi-row panoramas. but they only really look their best as huge prints.
I finally caught up on the photos, Diosa - they are stunning! Your panorama photos begin to do justice to the Grand Canyon. That’s a tall order - the IMAX movie about the GC doesn’t do it complete justice.
