Grand Canyon, Condors & Cameron

We have been on our summer assignment a little over a month now and have yet to get out to any of the places to see the canyon.  Our days have been pretty full with our routine work schedule and then there has been the extra training we have been getting.  We both got our certification to touch government computer keyboards and have our very own nps.gov email accounts now (ooohhh).  Then there has been the short road trips to see non-Grand Canyon attractions.  But we have changed that as of late.

Just as the season was finishing up last year, the road to Cape Royal was closed so they could re-pave it.  It is a popular place for visitors to the North Rim to go and one of the few places that one can get a glimpse of the Colorado River.  The North Rim has a couple of rows of buttes between it and the river that keeps the sculptor of the canyon hidden.  For our first canyon outing we thought we would go try out the new road and see if they smoothed out the heaves and dips of the old road, or better yet, widened it a little bit so you don't have to fold your mirrors in to keep from hitting the other person's mirror coming from the opposite way.  I guess we expected too much because when we got there the only difference we could tell was that the asphalt was new.  It did not seem an inch wider but maybe the heaves were not quite so high or the dips quite so deep.

Even though we were returning to familiar places there was still a lot of wow factor.  Just being away seven months our senses had forgotten what it was like that first moment your eyes take in more beauty and grandeur than they can handle.  The walk up to the edge of a 3,000 foot vertical drop was just as big a rush as the first time.

Arriving in August of last year we did not see the early blooming plants, as it turns out we did not miss much.  There just are not that many plants up here that bloom in the early, dry part of the season.  Everything seems to wait for the monsoons to start in mid to late July.  But there is one flowering plant with roots so deep it does not care, the Cliff Rose.  It looks like a scrub juniper tree but it is actually a member of the rose family.  And like its name says, it is found near the cliff edges in many places on the North Rim.  On our way to Cape Royal this day we found them easy to spot as they were all profuse with blooms.

Cliff Rose.
From a distance they appear similar to a juniper.

As you get closer the white masses become distinct clumps of flowers.

The Cliff Rose with its four white petals and yellow stamens.

Seeing the blooms was nice but not what we came for.  Our objective for the day was to get to overlooks and get some quality hang-time over high precipices.

One of the few places that the Colorado River can be seen from the North Rim.  If you squint just right you can see it at about the 8 o'clock position.

I don't know why but Cyndee wanted to take these pics.  She kept saying; "get farther out". 

While out on the rocky ledge I spotted a lone flower poking up out of the gravel.  Don't know what it is but it struck me how something so delicate looking could make a go of it in such a harsh place.

 



In addition to our sight seeing we were also in dire need of a full grocery run and an in person visit to our bank.  The need to physically be at a bank dictated our destination for grocery buying.  Bank of America has bailed out of every reasonably close town, turning their branches over to Wells Fargo or Bank of the West, with the exception of Flagstaff.  Flagstaff, if you do not stop along the way, is a four and a half hour drive from the North Rim.  We decided to not kill ourselves by taking on nine hours of driving and a full day of shopping all at once.  Instead, we booked a one night stay at an extended stay hotel and split the shopping, banking and driving across two days.  The extended stay room gave us a fridge and freezer to keep stuff in, not to mention a comfortable respite from a howling wind storm.

In the days leading up to and during our entire trip to Flagstaff the wind blew relentlessly.  Steady blowing of 40 to 50 mph with gusts and micro-bursts exceeding 70 mph.  In places where there was little vegetation, like around the Vermillion Cliffs and the Tuba City area, great clouds of red dirt rose thousands of feet into the air.

On our way out of the National Park we were hoping to see the buffalo herd.  We had learned that because of the lack of winter snow and mild temps that calving season saw nearly a 100% survival rate.  Between the lack of snow moisture and the increase demand for grazing, the meadows inside the park had give out and the park service had resorted to feeding the herd.  When we approached the entrance station we were not disappointed, the whole herd, all two hundred and fifty of them were spread out before us.

They were strung out so far that I could not get them all in even with a wide angle lens so I took the above panorama with the iPhone.  You can't really see much but it does convey a sense of the scale of things.  I would guess that 80% of them were laying down.

You might also notice that I am keeping a good distance between me and them.  These guys can get an attitude on pretty quickly and become aggressive.  Their horns, which they all have regardless of gender or age, can shred the sheet metal on a vehicle in a heart beat.  And since they can run at 35 miles an hour you need plenty of room between you and them for reaction time.  That's where a good telephoto lens comes in handy.

Buffalo herd in the meadow just inside the National Park Entrance Station

Everybody had an impressive set of horns.

Moving on, we make our way down off the Kaibab Plateau, losing about 3,000 feet in elevation.  As we finish our first hundred miles Big Gulp is reporting a fuel consumption rate of 23 miles to the gallon, way above its single digit rate of 8 mpg when towing the 5th wheel and nearly twice that of its normal running empty rate.  But this improved fuel economy is not all due to downhill travel.  The wind I spoke of early is in our favor too.

While the wind was a benefit for locomotion the first half of the trip it put a bit of a damper on one of our favorite things to do on the way to Flagstaff; stopping at Navajo Bridge and photographing Condors.  When we arrived there were no birds to be found but after scanning the skies for awhile one appeared in the distance.  He was waggling significantly, trying to stay his course and reach a roost near the bridge.  I double-wrapped the camera strap around my upper arm for fear the wind would peel the camera from my hands and leveled the lens in the direction of the approaching black kite.

As the condor came in he was flying directly above and parallel to the river gorge.  As he approached the bridge he turned perpendicular to the river and headed for the canyon wall opposite of where I was.  Now he was jinking and jerking hard, trying to stay lined up for a landing.  Then, suddenly, he turns 180 degrees, flying just below the trusses of the bridge and looking for an alternate runway.



Condor 40 has picked a place to land.  He is on final approach, flaps down, gear down.

He is over the threshold now, starting his flare-out.  Wind is swirling in all directions.

And he sticks the landing!  A perfect two-point with a three step roll out.

I think he impressed himself with that landing.

We are getting pounded by the wind and there are no other birds in sight so we move on to our next anticipated stop; Cameron Trading Post.  I wrote about this place last year and carried on about their restaurant's house specialty; Indian Fry Bread Taco.  We had deliberately timed our departure so that we would arrive at Cameron during lunch time.  And we purposely skipped stopping at Jacob Lake for one of their world famous cookies to be sure that our appetites would be peaked.  And they were.

As a first-timer, if you order the regular-size taco you are shocked at the enormous plate of food they set before you.  Last year I had to be carried out of there in a wheel barrow after I finished the whole thing.  This year we took a much more sane approach and ordered a single taco and split it between the two of us.  It was still more than enough to make each of us uncomfortably full.  Maybe that side order of fries I asked for had a little to do with it too.

Aside from the restaurant and its fry bread taco, Cameron is a heck of a stop.  It is a trading post, motel, museum, post office and gas station.  The trading post is large and heavily stocked with everything from made in China trinkets to local artist hand made jewelry, much of which is museum quality.

Cyndee inspecting some of the Navajo artist, hand made turquois and silver jewelry.

Even the architecture of the restaurant is worth stopping and seeing.  Hammered metal ceiling, stone columns, huge carved display cases.

There is a rug weaver that has a loom set up in the trading post.  Every rug hanging in this display is priced at more than $10,000

Once we crossed the Navajo Bridge the road turned and pointed us into the wind.  Now we were climbing and pushing a head wind, the fuel economy numbers dropped rapidly.  Our chores in Flagstaff went without incident.  However one thing happened that I had not experienced since I was a youngster growing up on the high plains of the panhandle of Texas.  While pushing a fully loaded shopping cart to the truck a gust of wind came across us that was so powerful that it pushed me (and the cart) back a couple of steps.  It had to be a heck of a gust, I was already braced and leaning into the steady wind and still I was pushed back.

Even with the wind it was a nice trip.  Getting a hotel room for the night was a good thing to do for several reasons.  But our kids are coming to see us in August and we will do that one as a day trip.  We have told them to get a plane that arrives early enough in the day that we can stop at Cameron for a taco on the way back and still be daylight enough to not have to dodge a thousand deer before getting home.