Canyon to the left of them, canyon to the right of them...

So we both had completely the wrong mental picture of the Grand Canyon - something like a steep U shape, red and deep with a bit of river in the middle.

I have revised my mental picture. It's now a huge tub of ice cream, and someone's taken lots of scoops out, but they haven't really touched the sides, and they've taken most scoops from the centre. It's beautiful, but a little less dramatic than I'd expected - partly because you start at the top, and getting down to the bottom is quite a mission* so you see it mostly from above.

* You are very strongly advised not to hike all the way down to the river and back in a day. It's hard to tell what your range is, because coming back up is a lot harder than going down, and probably hotter.

We went to the South Rim - the less popular North Rim is just a mile away, but the canyon extends so far that it's a 5 hour drive! So you won't be doing both in a day. There's a visitor centre and national park which is the obvious point to head for.

Flagstaff is quite a way away, so we got up early with the intention of taking one of the trails into the canyon and back by noon, which we just about managed. We took the South Kaibab trail as far as Cedar Ridge, a 3 mile trip described as difficult but not really too bad on a sunny but not baking May morning. I wouldn't have fancied it later in the day, though. The trail switchbacks down and eventually reaches a spine out into the valley with good views in all directions. We made it back safely for lunch in the cafe - plan ahead, by the way, a sign makes it clear that there are no guns allowed in the cafe.

Back up top, it's very easy to get sucked into taking the free shuttle buses along the central 13km section, jumping on and off for various viewpoints, and we spent a while doing this, with an occasional walk along the rim. It's not bad, but the view doesn't change that much from point to point. Eventually we got back in our car and drove along Desert View Drive to the east. This is a c30km stretch (I think) with less frequent viewpoints, which means that the view does change, and is probably better than it was at the central area.

 We stopped at a few and eventually sat down to wait for sunset at Lipan Point. This looks a really good spot for it - we felt justified when a National Geographic guide brought his tour party here for sunset - and sunset had looked pretty good the day before. Sadly, although the pre-sunset light itself was good, the sunset itself was nothing to write home about (not that that usually stops me).

We have three more national parks scheduled this week so it'll be interesting to see how the GC stacks up...