CHARISMATIC GEOMORPHOLOGY!

Today, we woke up early and watched the sun rise in the Grand Canyon. I don't even know how to begin to describe how incredible it was to stare into this giant, awesome hole in the ground all day.

We left Bullhead City a little after 2 AM to make it to the South Rim in plenty of time for sunrise. It was cool and rainy, but the weather stopped for a few minutes to enjoy the sun pouring through the clouds, lighting up the canyon brilliantly. Even overcast, it was just so beautiful. Mike will tell you his favorite stupid thing I said today was probably just after sunrise, as we took pictures of the stunning canyon. I turned to this lovely Utah Juniper next to me and said, "I love this tree." You know, while standing next to the Grand Canyon. I was just in awe of everything I could see.

We decided to hike about a mile and a half kind of southeast from Mather Point (a great overlook closest to the first visitors center in the park) to Pipe Creek Vista. It just rained the entire time, and was so chilly and windy. I enjoyed the biodiversity along the trail in addition to the changing view of the canyon itself. It was really nice to just have a walk by ourselves, without loud tourists and worrying about getting in the way of other people's photos. We were so cold and soaked by the end of it that we were thankful when a park shuttle pulled up to the vista just as we finished a timer photo of our sad, soggy selves. We weren't really that sad though, just in need of some hot tea.

After we warmed up and dried off a bit, the rain mostly stopped for the day, just occasional spitting. We packed some snacks and my tree book into a backpack and took off, hiking along the rim trail about four miles to the west of Mather Point, stopping often just to soak it all in. I felt so small all day, but it didn't make me feel lonely or pointless. It felt cozy. I'm such a small part of such a big world, but things are pretty great. I mean, come on, I spent my day at the Grand Canyon. Didn't expect that this summer!

We hiked down the Bright Angel trail a little bit, though we had a short night of sleep to make it out to the canyon in the first place, and had already hiked quite a bit at a way higher elevation than either of us are really used to having grown up at sea level. We sat for a while on one little outcropping. We were tired. It was glorious, but we decided to take the shuttle back to the main parking area mid-afternoon.

I'd been doing so well, but as soon as I sat down on that bus, I was just beat. Done. I kind of nodded off a bit as we took the trip back, until we passed one little road with a lot of cars and people stopped and crowded around this little gully. The bus driver announced that we might want to look out the left side of the bus-- a bull elk was feeding there.

!!!

Charismatic megafauna of the day: BULL ELK. That woke me up! We got off at that next stop and hurried over to get some pictures. The elk didn't really give a care that everyone was watching him, just kept munching on trees and grass and knocking down branches that got tangled in his enormous rack. It was incredible. It almost didn't seem real. He was huge! And very peaceful. We kept a safe distance to keep it that way.

While taking pictures of the elk, we spoke to a nice couple from Flagstaff, where we're staying tonight. They recommended a sweet brew pub downtown. We made the trip to Flag, through some really heavy rains and some really interesting national forests-- Arizona just keeps blowing my mind. Rain! Trees! FORESTS?! It's so green at 8000 feet. I was also amused that the part of the Kaibab Forest that we drove through on Route 180 didn't even really have trees, it was mostly just open rangeland. Still really beautiful, and just awesome to see storm clouds in the distance dumping rain on the mountains surrounding us.

So that brewpub in Flagstaff: Beaver Street Brewpub. Really great beer and food. Good end to a great day.

Beer of the day: R & R Stout, a really smooth, rich but not offensive stout that even Mike liked

Tree of the day: That Utah Juniper probably deserves it most, but I also enjoyed familiarizing myself with Pinyon Pines (they look vaguely sprucey), Ponderosa Pines (really cool looking red and black bark once they mature), and the Gambel Oak (just because I was sitting at the edge of the canyon with my tree book open at one point, with one of those in front of me)

Charismatic geomorphology of the day: Grand Canyon. And when the term "charismatic geomorphology" is a thing in the coming years, I want everyone to remember where they heard it first...