Once you wrap your head around all that, it's easy to understand why this is the first post.
We are, as I write this, sitting in a motel in Sedona having already done our Grand Canyon tour, but I am going to post as if it is just starting.
Wednesday evening we met our 2 main tour guides as well as the 3 other people we would be doing this hike with. This meeting was something that worried me a little, as most times, the only person I am comfortable being around for extended periods of time, is, of course, Joani. Add the fact that tours are not my thing anyway, because I hate being told where and when I am going somewhere, and this had the potential to be a rather uncomfortable meeting.
I'm not going to drag this out because that would be unfair to the people I just spent the last 4 days with. If I had been in charge of selecting our tour guides and screening our potential hiking companions and had several weeks of culling potential candidates, I could not have made better choices.
As I go into full detail, I will mention a few other people who went part ways with us, but our main group of seven was pure heaven....( poetry, free of charge).
Our lead guide was Addie
I'm not sure if I can do Addie justice, in a short amount of words but I'm going to try. She's ex military, has several degrees including one in nursing and more importantly for a Grand Canyon guide, a degree in Geology. She made everything look easy, sometimes frustratingly so, as I hope you can tell by my photo. She alternated between the flip flops pictured and a small pair of shoes that looked more like slippers, and showed absolutely no respect for what was supposed to be an extremely tough hike. On the other hand, she showed us newbies nothing but respect proving to be kind and compassionate with a very dry sense of humor. She answered every question I asked, even the silly ones, and it was very easy to trust and respect her right from the start.
Our second guide was Brett.
Again, the first thing you should look at is the footwear. Here we are hiking what is supposedly an extremely tough trail and our two main guides wore flip flops most of the time. You gotta know your business to do that, and they both did. Oh, did I mention that in Brett's spare time he has a medical practice! If we needed to call a doctor it was a simple matter of looking over our shoulder and saying, "got a minute Brett?". Safety first?? He also had an amazing sense of humour, pulling laughs out of us rookies at some of the toughest moments. These two guides made what could have been a torture test into something that was personally, one of my best vacation trips yet.
On to the rookie squad.
From left to right, that's Bill, Michele and Hazel. Then, of course, there's Joani and me. The entire group became really good friends in an extremely short time. We were all older than our guides and I think perhaps only Bill had any idea what we were in for, but we were all happy at this moment. It was the day before the start of our hike and we were being chauffeured to the top of the north rim by another great OARS employee named Laura. She not only drove us to our starting point but hiked down a few hours on the first day with us, to see if anyone was going to change their minds. Needless to say the tough looking group that you're looking at did no such thing, but it was another safety valve that I appreciated. At the north rim we met up with what I thought was another OARS employee, Tyler, who we learned would be hiking down with us. He had never hiked the North Kaibab trail and wanted to know what it was like. He hiked back up the north trail the next morning alone. I found out the next day that he was one of the two co- owners. This is one of the biggest outdoor adventure companies going and we hiked into the canyon with one of the bosses. Joani and I travel in exalted company if you didn't know. We liked Tyler and thought the world of his guides, so I'm attaching a link to his company. If any of you want to take a white water rafting trip or hike down the Grand Canyon, this is the company to go with.
We spent most of day one driving to the North rim on a bit of a sightseeing trip so I will end this post with photos of what we were seeing along the way.
And last but not least, the obligatory animal crossing photo. We were held hostage by a herd of buffalo for 10 minutes on the main road through Grand Canyon National Park. Shades of Greece.
This blog allows me to write more as I love the sound of my own typing??? But I also get to add more photos, so remember any of you that want to skip the stories, just tap one picture and it will be all photos, no type.
Tomorrow will be our hike down. See you then.
Garry
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