A huge change in the weather! It was very cloudy and much cooler than we arrived a day and a half earlier! We wanted to go to Hermits Rest and see the canyon from the western end. We took the shuttle bus on the red route and stopped a few times on the way. Five loud, young French guys talked so loudly that it was difficult to hear the bus driver telling us about the canyon but I couldn’t remember how to say ‘be quiet’ in French! We walked some of the way between stops and as we did, it started snowing! The ground must have been quite warm because it didn’t settle, but it did look awesome. And as I told Will, it was nice to see the canyon with different weather – the ranger last night had said that the canyon can look spectacular in a range of different weather conditions! When it had stopped snowing/raining, we walked along the rim a bit more. We kept seeing those annoying French guys – at one point three of them were on the other side of the barrier, on the edge of the cliff. All I could think about was that statistic from the night before. Ahh, young males, they think they’re invincible! We walked along the little goat-trail pretending to be a path along the rim for a little more. Then it snowed again. We took lots of photos of snow falling into the canyon! A quick stop at the actual Hermits Rest to check out the overpriced souvenirs, then back on the nice warm bus.
We had parked in the Village Market carpark, so we went back there for some lunch. It hailed while we had lunch and everything went white. It was soo cold after arriving in 30 + degrees! We posted some postcards and then had a look in the huge supermarket/souvenir shop. A drink bottle later and we were back on the road.
We drove to Desert View to look at the observatory tower thingy which had been built there about a hundred years ago. We took our last photos of the canyon L. The canyon was a lot shallower than where we had been camping, but it still looked amazing and we could see more of the Colorado River.
On the way to Tuba City/Canyon de Chelly, saw a sign on the side of the road which said ‘Dinosaur tracks’, so we stopped and had a look (my dad had mentioned he had stopped here many years ago – wonder if it has changed much!). Some cool three-toed tracks. And also raptor tracks. And the g-saurus fossil. Was pretty cool, but I was a little cynical…
Stayed the night at Hopi Cultural Center carpark in Hotevilla. Met a couple of friendly ‘Rodger’ type dogs who wanted our food. They were cute and pretty tame though. A quiet night.
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