19/12/12 - Chopper Magic

After breakfast at Maswick Lodge we took a short walk to the rim for a look and then returned to ‘defrost’ the car and drive through the ‘winter wonderland’ forests down to the airport where we managed to get ourselves booked on a 1 hour helicopter flight over and through the Canyon. Woohoo!

Neither of us had ever been up in a helicopter before, so that was interesting in itself, but the views over the canyon were so arresting that once we plunged over the edge of the Canyon (to the opening bars of 2001 Space Odyssey) we both forgot to worry about the absence of a comforting pair of wings below us and just sat open mouthed looking out the windows for the rest of the all too short flight.

After the flight we drove back to the Grand Canyon Village, had lunch at the Visitors Information Centre and went for a brief stroll along the Rim Walk out to the Mather Point Amphitheatre but the path was so icy and slippery that we decided instead to head back to the car and drive out along Hermits Road to the Hermit’s Rest lookout.

On the way back from Hermits Rest, on the recommendation of the Hopi Indian guy who had served Wendy coffee in the Visitors Centre earlier in the day we decided to stop at Powell Point to watch the sunset. Unsurprisingly, since he was born and raised here, that guy knew what he was talking about, fantastic views that changed by the minute as the sun sank lower and lower and eventually disappeared behind the mountains. Wendy got some great photos with the zoom lens on her Nikon camera, and I took snaps with my iPhone of all the plaques … just so that I had some light reading for later that night.

Back to Maswik Lodge for a dinner of beers and pizza and an early night!