After spending the night in Flagstaff, we met CanX staff for an orientation in the hotel.
They demonstrated dry bags, introduced our guides, and told us to meet our hiking guide
at 5am the next morning for the hike down Bright Angel Trail. They gave us a copy
of
The
Colorado River in the Grand Canyon, which contains an excellent mile-by-mile map of the river
and lots of info about geology, natural, and human history.
We left our rolling bags with them and brought only our day packs with us to the South Rim.
We checked in to our room at the
Thunderbird Lodge,
then walked along the rim trail for a mile and half, looking out into the vast canyon. We wore our hiking clothes to dinner at the
El Tovar dining room,
where we could easily identify all of the not-hikers by their fancy clothes and jewelry.