The South Rim

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.
We saw bunnies just outside our room in Thunderbird Lodge.
looking out over the canyon from the rim trail
We walked east along the rim trail from Thunderbird Lodge.
We looked down at Bright Angel Trail. The green far below is Indian Gardens, 2/3 of the way down.
Away from the hotels, the wall along the rim trail became a line of rocks.
looking back toward the Bright Angel trailhead
We could see the first set of switchbacks going down into the canyon.
Paul went into the Yavapi Geology museum.
Next to the geology museum, we found a spot where we could just see the milky brown river far below.