The Grand Canyon: West Rim

Our next stop was The Grand Canyon.

The West Rim is 2 hours from Las Vegas or 1.5 hours from Hoover Dam.

The South Rim is 5 hours away and we decided that was too far.

Neither of us had ever been to The West Rim so we were looking forward to it.

 The landscape of Arizona was filled with these cactusy trees.

 We enjoyed the scenery.

However, we were not prepared for a 14 mile drive on dirt roads to get to the west rim.

My touristy books and park information failed to mention this little tid bit.

 Kevin was wishing we signed up for a helicopter tour...

We kept seeing cattle crossing signs and were confused by them.

We had driven for many miles
and hadn't seen any sort of creature along the landscape.

 Bam... out of nowhere... cows with horns wandering to and fro.

Guess it was a good thing there were signs warning about this.

We saw lots of them
and were just hoping none would be there to surprise us around the bend.

It was pricier than we anticipated to get into The West Rim 

because it was on the Hualapai Indian Reservation

and not classified as a national park.

We paid $75 to get it and get tickets for a 3 stop bus tour.

 We enjoyed making it just in time for the LAST tour of the day.

Surprisingly enough, there were NO guard rails on these narrow roads.

 Our first stop was at:

Again, no guard rails and an over curious Kevin...

 Nothing to stop you from tumbling a LONG way down.

 The Sky Walk that hangs 4,000 ft above the canyon floor.

Unfortunately, we arrived 7 minutes after 5:00 and this closed at 5.

So we didn't get to go on it because apparently the Halaupai people

are serious about that 5:00 closing time 

and will just tell you to come back another day if you arrive after that.

We still got a great view of Eagles Point 

because apparently this looks like an eagle with its' wings outstretched.

 Close enough to the edge for me.

 We learned that you can't take anything with you on the Skywalk.  

No purses, cameras, etc. 

If you want to have pictures of you being out there,
you must pay their photographer to take them.

Not cool.

It's probably best that we didn't get to do this

because I don't appreciate being told not to take pictures

and my mom wasn't really fond of us going out on the Sky walk.

 The sun was starting to set, the wind was picking up and the temp was dropping.

Our 2nd stop, touted to have 360 degree views of The Grand Canyon.

Here's Kevin going as close to the edge as humanly possible.

Me taking the pictures slightly worried that he may slip...

 Great red rocks and NO chance of falling for me :)

Notice a theme here??

Kevin trying to scare his poor wifey??

Maybe he is just being adventurous?

I'd prefer safe but I agreed to take a few pictures

and prayed that he wouldn't make the news for falling into The Grand Canyon.

 Colorado River 4,000 ft below.

 Hiking out to Guana Point.

Old mining station and tram connecting point.

 Brave enough for me.

 Cross another National Park off our list Kev!

It wasn't quite as much fun driving the 14 mile dirt road back in the dark...

we trailed a few other cars which was nice and the cows must have gone to bed.

We really were in the middle of nowhere  :)