Earth's biggest ditch ...

… to quote my beloved Captain Janeway. And it sure is that. I find the name quite apt, especially on a gray and windy day like today. I spent all day exploring all the views I had not seen yesterday, so that by now I’ve been to every single lookout and scenic view along the south rim. The best thing about it all was that I was completely alone for half the day when I was driving along the scenic drive to Hermit’s Rest early this morning. At this time of day only very few people found their way out there – most of them focus on Grand Canyon Village and the “big” stops at Mather Point, Yaki Point, and Yavapai Point. Those I did this afternoon, and promptly ran into a lot more people. The weekend’s coming, and so are the weekend tourists.

Apropos tourists: I guess it’s a good time to go on vacation in Japan because apart from Americans, I’d say the Japanese are the biggest group here, and many do indeed travel in large numbers (flocks? gaggles? herds?). Probably on one of those “See-the-entire-USA-in-a-week” vacations. Not too many Brits or Germans around so far. I did run into a woman from England last night (whose brother lives in Wimbledon – small world, eh?), and a German hiker was happy to trade some words this afternoon. He’s been traveling alone for two weeks on the same loop I’m on (just in the opposite direction), and he seemed quite starved for conversation.

It’s supposed to start snowing tomorrow, and I hope it won’t. Or at least not too heavily since I’ll have a fair bit of driving to do tomorrow. In clear weather I’m looking at about 5 hours in my car and snow would probably add a couple of hours to that.

I’m going to end this, as usual, with a few more photos although the weather wasn’t ideal today. The grayish sky made for washed-out colors and low contrast. I saw some wildlife though, so I’m sharing those photos, and there were some good shots along the way too.
Addendum: Just as I had finished writing this, we were presented with another spectacular sunset. I grabbed my camera and ran out, so you’ll get some photos of that as well.