Goodbye Grand Canyon, Hello Petrified Forest

I somehow managed to convince Kasper to go on one more hike on Thursday morning. It seems like a long shot based on the day before, but we were both feeling pretty good when we woke up so we decided to hike the Bright Angel Trail. You can hike as far as 12 miles round-trip, but we opted for the three-mile option. Apparently, there’s not much difference as to what you can see unless you do the full 12 miles.

As is tradition, we snapped a picture at the trailhead sign. Probably one of the nicer trailhead signs you’ll ever see.

The 3 mile loop of the Bright Angel Trail that we did descends over 1100 feet in the first 1.5 miles. That makes it even steeper than the South Kaibab Trail we did the day before. If the picture is worth 1000 words, then this one is worth about 1000 feet.

All told, the hike took us only two hours including stops and a break at the bottom, so we did extremely well for that elevation change and distance.

This is the view from where we hiked; 1.5 miles into the canyon.

We pretty much chilled out the rest of the day either hiking (strolling might be more appropriate) the Rim Trail or reading a book or doing some shopping for souvenirs. We even managed a little pool time before dinner. Kind of nice to be on vacation and be able to do whatever you want.

On our way out of the park, we decided to leave through the east entrance and then drive to Petrified Forest National Park. It’s called the Desert View Drive and it is definitely worth the time investment if you are ever in the Grand Canyon.

This is one of many views from the Desert View Drive.

Petrified Forest national Park was not anything like I imagined. I guess somewhere in my brain I imagined there would actually be a forest and not one that existed 220 million years ago. All that’s left is a Badlands desert with petrified tree trunks.

It’s a very beautiful place and I would recommend it if you were driving by. But I wouldn’t go to far out of your way. We spent about four hours in the park and that was more than enough time to take it in. There was one or two additional small hikes we could’ve done but we wanted to continue on to our next destination.

This is one of the many spectacular views from the north side of the park.

We are heading on to Albuquerque and then Roswell later today. There probably won’t be quite so many spectacular views until we get to the Carlsbad area.