After spending most of my vacations traveling abroad in the last few years, I found this vacation truly relaxing. Everybody speaks English and everywhere dollar is used. The best part of the trip was the great travel companions: my brother and his wife, my cousin and his wife Weiqun, Armstrong and his wife Yi, and Milton. Their excellent sense of humor, consideration for others, and boundless energy made this trip a truly enjoyable experience.
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Tour itinerary:
Dec 25: drove from San Jose to Santa Monica, 5 hours 45 minutes with no traffic. Santa Monica Beach. SiChuan dinner in new Chinatown.
Dec 26: got Jay Leno Tix in the morning. Malibu Beach. Getty Musuem. Couldn't get into Jay's show thanks to extra 138 special guests. Sichuan dinner, again.
Dec 27: Beverly Hills. Rodeo Drive. Sunset Blvd. Sichuan lunch, third time. Drive to Las vages (starting at 12:30, arriving hotel around 6pm). Cirque Du Soleil's O show in Bellagio at night.
Dec 28: Driving to Grand Canyon from Vegas. Toured the Rim briefly. Told by ranger not to hike down and up in one day. Ignored warning. Purchased enormous amount of food in store for next day hiking. Ate huge meals in cafeteria.
Dec 29: Hiked South Kaibab down to Colorado River, up Bright Angel. Duration 11 hours. Exhausted but in awe of what we saw and accomplished.
Dec 30: Petrified Forest National Park, which is about 200 miles away from Grand Canyon South Rim.
Dec 31: Sunrise in Yavapai Observation Point. Visited rest of the South Rim scenic spots. Drove back to Vegas around 3pm. Watched Siegfried and Roy's White Tiger show.
Jan 1: Hoover Dam. Visited various Casinos on the strip at night.
Jan 2: Drove from Vegas to LA. Watched taping of tonight show with Jay Leno. Drove back to San Jose around midnight.
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Grand Canyon

South Kaibab Trail	the Colorado River
Canyons at Dawn	Snowed Capped Canyon
Clouds and the Canyon	Milton and the Canyon
Yellow Canyon Wall	Clouds over Canyon
Flathead	Bridge!
Passed First Bridge	Second Bridge
NARROW bridge	A View of Two Bridges
More Two Bridges	River View
Canyon of Many Layers	Frozen Water Fall
Snow capped Canyon	Wow!
Still a long way to go	Almost Done
Morning After Snow	Sunrise at Yavapai
Sunrise 2	Sunrise 3
Sunrise 4	Sunrise 5

Although I've never been to Grand Canyon during the summer, I think the best time to visit is during the winter. First of all, the place is not swarming with a million other tourists fighting for a spot to take a good picture or to park. Second of all, the weather is cool enough to make hiking from rim to the river and back in one day a possibility. I've hiked Mt. Whitney and Half Dome in 2001. Both are more difficulte than the canyon hike in terms of elevation gain, distance, and altitude. However, since the temperature in the valley can reach 120 degree in summer, hiking 17 miles in one day is extremely dangerous. In winter, temperature is mild in the valley and cold on the rim, which makes it perfect for a long hike. We took South Kaibab (6.2 miles, 4780 ft elevation gain) down and Bright Angel (9.3 miles, 4460 ft elevation) up. The entire trip took us 11 hours.

We arrived at the information center in the afternoon of Dec 28. The ranger there strongly discouraged us from taking this hike. However, after seeing all the warnings were futile, she suggested that we should get ice crampons (which turned out to be an excellent idea) and enough food to consume a sizable snack like an apple every 45 minutes (which turned out to be a horrible idea). I recalled my low appetite during my Whitney ordeal, but thought maybe that was due to high altitude. So we visited the market place, looting the energy bar section and getting enought snack food to feed an army. That night in the Yavapai Lodge we packed frantically for about an hour: food, camelpaks, water, sport drinks, headlights, batteries....We parked a car in Bright Angel trailhead in case we came up too late to catch the shuttle. Sleep came difficult as I was too excited about the hike. At 4:30 am my brother woke everybody up. The hotel rooms swirled into a storm of activity as we prepared for breakfast and got ready to go. We drank hot chocolate, and ate sausages, bagles with cream cheese. Then we were out of the door and into the cold. Surprisingly, although the temperature was around 21 degrees, it wasn't that cold out there.

We parked the van near the trailhead in South Kaibab. It took us a few mintues to find the trailhead, put on the crampons, and get ready to go. We started walking at 5:45pm. The first couple miles were covered with ice and snow. Those 10 dollar a pair campons were really worth the money. We proceeded with caution and walked very slowly. As day broke, we marveled at the magnificent views unfolding around us: snowed capped canyon walls against dawn's glowing sky. But we had to go down first and fast! I took most pictures while I was walking, so some of the pictures were out of focus, and the composition were not that good.

After couple hours of hiking, we saw a sliver of watet: the Colorado River, appeared in the valley below. We had to stop and let a train of mules carrying tourists to pass us going back to the rim. They all looked pretty comfortable as we still were looking at 12 miles of hiking, 9.6 of which uphill. We picked up some speed after Zhang Yi took the lead. We reached the river around 10am. There were two bridges about a few hundred feet from each other crossing the river. We took one suspension bridge to cross the river from South Kaibab, and another to reach the Bright Angel Trail. By the river we had lunch, which consisted of spam, bread, dried fruits, beef jerky, and apples. At 11am sharp, we resumed our hike to the rim.

Yi and my sister-in-law Weiqun took the lead for the first 4.6 miles to Indian Garden. These two women walked at such a furious pace that we managed to reach Indian Garden in 2 hours. Before reaching Indian Garden, we again made room for a group of mules to pass us going to the river. We refilled water and rested our weary feet and legs at indian Garden and continued hiking up. It started to rain in the afternoon and we decided to speed up so we wouldn't get soaked. Milton and I put on our cheap $1.99 rain poncho which already served us in Brazil once. Soon we reached high enough altitude that the rain turned into snow, and it was not the light snow as forecasted, but pretty intense snowing. We counldn't see very far ahead of us. We sighed and put on our crampons.

Our speed slowed considerably after Indian Garden as the road and weather conditions worsened and the trail got a lot steeper than before. We had to rest pretty often. At certain spots, my cousin and his wife put their disney world rain poncho, with a huge Mickey Mouse printed on the back, on the ground to rest with their feet in the air. On our way up we met a family of ill prepared hikers: two parents with a small girl. The wife was wearing a pair of leather shoes with heels and they only brought with them a small bottle of water. They actually hiked all the way to Indian Garden and were on their way up. The girl was eating snow because they ran out of water. At first we thought she was playing, then Armstrong, who was the last one passing them, offered to fill their bottle with his water. They drank half a bottle and Armstrong filled it up again. During our last rest, we regreted that we didn't notice their dire condition earlier since we could've gladly give them most of our extra food: apples that weighed a ton in our backpack, bread and water, etc.

We finally reached the top shortly before 5pm. We had to pass a gate carved out of a stone wall before reaching the trailhead. At this point, Weiqun, thinking that we were finally at the end of our journey, all the sudden found some hidden energy and sped pass all of us, only to slow down in disappointment after seeing that there was still a bit to go.

My brother, my cousin, and Milton went to pick up the van while the rest of us waited in the lodge at Bright Angel. All the sudden we got really cold since our clothes were soaked inside and out by sweat, rain, and snow. My brother later told me that once they got into the van, they started to shiver uncontrollably because they got so cold. So I guess hypothermia was a real threat during a winter hike. While hiking, we did get cold while resting, but soon warmed up after walking a few hundread feet. I can imagine if a hiker gets exhausted and can not hike any futher, hypothermia could kill a hiker in his/her weakened state.

that night at our hotel roomes, we cooked Kimchi noodle and ate fried chicken and salad bought from the cafeteria. We were tired but in high spirit. This hike was definitely the high point of our vacation. In one day, we've experienced sunshine, overcast sky, rain and snow in Grand Canyon. Two lessons were learned from this hike. First, carry as little as you can. We carried way too much food, esp Milton and I. You don't feel the weight while going downhill, but every ounce matters when you are going up hill. I finally had to pass the loaf of rasin bread and a bag of trail mix to my brother; and that made a huge difference. You don't need to bring a lot of water if you follow our route, since gonig downhill is relatively fast and there is drinking water available at the river, at Indian Garden, 3 mile and 1.5 mile point from the rim on Bright Angel trail. After the hike, we grimly reflected, after Armstrong pointed out, that since we went downhill more than uphill, we actually did negative work carrying these food items from a purely physics perspective! Second, don't dress too warmly while hiking to prevent excess sweating. Once you heat up, your muscles work less efficiently. Before the first bead of sweat forms on your back, take off some clothes!

The next morning, we woke up at 8am. My brother, my cousin, and Armstrong went to do laundry in the village. I walked with Zhanqing, my cousin's wife, into a snow covered world. The snow last night was so heavy that most of the roads were closed in the Park. We decided to visit Petrified Forest National Park instead. Most of us were so sore that day that we walked like penguins. Armstrong and my brother, who exercise regularly, didn't feel much pain at all. It was particularly painful to exit the van after sitting inside for couple hours: it felt as if blood had drained from our legs from sitting still for so long and the sudden rush of blood to the vein was like shooting high voltage electricity through our limbs. Milton adapted a method of turning his back to the door and back out of the van to ease the pain. My conclusion was that we need more Ibeprofen next time. We took 8 Ibeprofens in 48 hours per person for the Whitney hike, and we survived the ordeal with no sore muscles. This time around I was a little timid with Ibeprofen, since I read some place that too much ibeprofen may increase chance of contacting flesh eating bacteria. We only took 5 pills per person in 48 hours. Next time, we will back to 8 pills.

On Dec 31, we got up early at 6am to catch sunrise in the Canyon. We called the hotel operator and she told us her favorite spot was the Yavapai Observation Station, which is not far from our lodge. We initially decided to go to Desert View, which is a good 20 miles away at the end of the Park. Now a closer location presented itself, we decided to 'sleep in' instead. When we got to the station, we found a mob of people already there. We had to fight the crowd to get a good angle to take good pictures. Cannot imagine how it would be in the summer! After watching sunrise, we drove to all the scenic stops along the Park. I actually think the best spot to watch sun rise is at desert view, or the spot before it. First of all, there would be fewer people. Second of all, the canyon view was much better. Overall, Grand Canyon should really be called the grandest canyon. No superlative can adequately describe this nature's splendid creation. Some haunting thoughts remain: this beautiful land is what we, the immigrants, brutally took from the indians.
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Strange Landscape	Strange Landscape 2
Sunshine	Sun and Trees
Sunset	Dusk

Since the round trip alone took 8 hours, we decided not to take any lunch break. We lived on leftover energy bars, apples, beef jerky, and bread from the hike. By now we really missed the excellent Chinese food we ate in L.A.

PFNP was not rated high in epinion.com. Some people really liked it. Some were not impressed by it at all. Basically the logs in that area had been petrified -- organic matters replaced by minirals and quartz. However, most quartz had been stolen by early miners and park visitors. The landscape itself is rather unique, with desert landscape interrupted by strange rock formations. Some friends told us that it resembled the landscapes in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, which was a good description. We watched one of the most spectacular sunsets since the desert air there is one of the least polluted in the United States and in a clear day one can see as far as 110 miles away. Ironically, there is a coal power station not far away from the park, as the plums of smoke can be seen in some of my sunset pictures.

One of the most famous spots in the park is the painted desert. However, we weren't too impressed by it at all, after racing to see it before sunset. Either the light wasn't right, or the reflective index of the sand was out of alignment, we didn't really see any color to the landscape. Painted desert streches all the way from PFNP to Grand Canyon. Desert View in Grand Canyon is actually a view of the painted desert.

I am missing some pictures of some other interesting landscapes in the park since I ran out of memory in my camera. I am waiting for a CD from my brother and cousin to supplement my selection.

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We stayed in Quality Inn in Key Largo, which is only 1/4 miles away from the strip. It is a good deal for your money. We got large suites with kitchen (no stove) for $52 per suite. The rooms are clean and well maintained.

We stayed in Yavapai Lodge in Grand Canyon National Park. The rooms are spacious and clean. There is a single bed in each room in addition to two queen size beds, which served as our storage place for all the hiking gears and food. We spent about $100 per room.

On New Year's Eve, we stayed in Imperial Palace on the strip right across from Mirage. It is the cheapest deal I could find on New Year's Eve, around 169 per night. On Jan 1, the price droped to $55 per night. The elevator lobby smelled funny but the rooms were clean and pleasant.
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