We spent a glorious day at the Grand Canyon starting at sunrise and ending at sunset and in between, we walked 8 miles along the Rim Trail.  The Canyon really defies description.  My first visit here was 12 years ago and we arrived just a little before sunset.  When I walked out to Mather Point and saw the canyon for the very first time, I was so overcome, I burst into tears.  I had never seen anything quite so beautiful except for my children when they were born.

Today we saw deer and elk, although I didn’t get shots.  Because the ranger had told us there were California Condors around, I took the lighter of my big lenses on our hike, so between the high altitude, the weight I carried and the distance we covered, I am quite knocked out this evening. I only caught 3 brief glimpses of a Condor and got no shots, so I struck out there too. 

We were fortunate to  have beautiful partly sunny weather today. The canyon constantly changed and the photo ops were just amazing.  This was taken in the middle of the afternoon and I liked it because it shows the Colorado River which carved this canyon 5-6 million years ago. Be sure to have a look in "Large." This was taken from about 7000 ft and the river is at about 2200 ft (almost a mile down).  The distance across the canyon is probably 15 miles or more at this location. I have uploaded a few shots in the extras:  Sunrise, a fisheye view of the canyon, a fool at the edge of the canyon and tonight’s sunset which was superb.