West Rim of Grand Canyon

What Makes the Canyon Grand… Photos by Peggy Mekemson

/ Curt Mekemson / 60 Comments
The incredible beauty of the Grand Canyon combined with its geological history and opportunity for adventure have pulled Peggy and me back time and time again. (Photo by Peggy Mekemson.)

Peggy and I are now finishing up the first week of our Southwest tour and I decided it was time to give you a taste of things to come. Today, I am featuring photos by Peggy that she took on Saturday. All of these are from overlooks along the West Rim Drive between the Grand Canyon Village and Hermit’s Rest. Peggy is using our EOS Rebel T6i with its 16-300 Tamron telephoto lens.

We arrived at our campground in the park around one pm on Saturday and immediately set off to catch the shuttle bus out to Hermit’s rest. The West Rim drive is closed to autos. The bus makes several stops at key overlooks. Visitors are free to get off the bus, hang around as long as they want, and then catch another bus. They run every 10-15 minutes. We took the bus out to Powell Point and then hiked the Rim Trail to Mojave Point. There, we caught another bus out to Hermit’s Rest. After that we took a bus back to Mojave Point for sunset.

Well, most of the photos are by Peggy. (grin) This is not a selfie. Here she is sitting up on the memorial at Powell Point. I am using our Canon Power Shot G9X, the camera I took with me when I hiked down the PCT last year. While it lacks the lens and capabilities of our Canon Rebel, it still does a credible job.
This is looking back at Powell Point from along the Rim Trail. You can see the memorial on top and the tiny people checking out the views. (Photo by Peggy Mekemson.)
I have never seen a view of the Grand Canyon that isn’t scenic. (Photo by Peggy Mekemson.)
We often include trees to to add variety to our photos. (Photo by Peggy Mekemson.)
And since Peggy is taking the photos, I often end up in the tree shots. (Photo by Peggy Mekemson.)
Turn about is fair play, of course.
This ridge made it into several of our photos because of its dramatic color. (Photo by Peggy Mekemson.)
In addition to the grand views one gets by looking across the canyon, there are always interesting sights looking down. It’s good to avoid getting too close to the edge! Several people fall off every year taking selfies of themselves while standing as close as they can get. (Photo by Peggy Mekemson.)
This photo was of interest because of four things. One, it shows the massive Red Wall that makes its way all around the canyon. Two, the dark spot you see in the Red Wall was where a condor was spotted. Three, the trail you see in the distance, marks my first ever trip into the Canyon. I rode down on a mule and was sore for days after. Finally, you can see the Colorado River. Peggy and I did an 18 day raft trip down it several years ago. (Photo by Peggy Mekemson.)
Out at Hermit’s Rest, Peggy took a photo of me taking a photo. Can you guess what I am taking a picture of? (Photo by Peggy Mekemson.)
Here’s what I was capturing.
Back at Mojave Point, the sun was preparing to set. Note the tower to the left. (Photo by Peggy Mekemson.)
It turns from a reddish orange… (Photo by Peggy Mekemson.)
To a deeper red. (Photo by Peggy Mekemson.)
The rock outcrop on the right also caught our attention with its deep golden color.. (Photo by Peggy Mekemson.)
I’ll conclude with Peggy’s photo of the outcrop as darkness fell across the Canyon while the sun caught it full on, creating a magical moment. (Photo by Peggy Mekemson.)

NEXT POSTS: As you might imagine, we have much more on the Canyon and will be doing future posts as part of our National Park series. For now, we will provide snippets of our journey as we move along.