| US West Coast Escapade 2001 |
21st May 2001 Monday
| Day In Brief: |  Bright Angel Trail |
�
 |
| The
Bright Angel Trail is a drainage following trail that persues and ancient Havasupi Indian Route. We hiked from the trail head, West of the Bright Angel Lodge till Plateau Point, before retracting back to the trail head again. This took us about a total of 12 hours, inclusive of resting time. The route was 8.9km one way (i.e.17.6km round), and took us from an elevation of 2 067m (Trail head), down to a height of 1 067m (Plateau Point). There are only 3 sheltered rest points along the trail, namely: Mile-and-a-half Resthouse, Three-mile Resthouse and Indian Gardens.
Wanna see how we "survived" the entire trail? Read on.....
|
|
| "We started the day really early at around 5am....yep! It's one of the 5 days that we had to rise really early on our month long trip :P (In case u guyz are wondering...yes...ur fren here really did a count of the number of days where we really made the effort to wake up early..haha ;p)"
|
| Early in the morning at 6 o'clock! | |
 |
Still bright and fresh! Notice the layers of clothes that we have on? Despite the bright sunshine, the morning still felt kind of chilly at the rim of the canyon. |
| At the Trail Head |
 |
Credits for this photo goes to JKhoo |
| Along the beginning stretches of the trail | |
 |
"So far so good! But weather seems to be getting slightly warm...hmm...." Credits for this photo goes to Robin Low |
| Along the Trail |
 |
Notice the different rock stratas of the canyon wall? These occur naturally! But I think they do look kind of man-made....what do u think? Credits for this photo goes to Robin Low |
 |
 |
| At the second rest stop along the Bright Angel Trail- The 3 Mile Rest Stop Where there's water, shelter and toilet facilities......pit toilets ;( "Errm...so how do we look now? We're only half the way down to our destination!" |
|
|
| "Time for a breather......cooling break under the shade of a tree on a proper bench.....what a luxury!"
Credits for this photo goes to JKhoo |
� |
| Onward to Plateau Point |
 |
| "On our last stretch of the trail before reaching Plateau Point. This part is more exposed than the earlier parts, however it was less strenous than earlier parts as most parts of this trail is on level ground. Phew....no more elevation changes!" Credits for this photo goes to Robin Low |
| Destination reached - Plateau POint!! | |
 |
|
| "What's a little sun as long as we can rest our tired legs?" The 4 of us posing for a shot on the promontory jutting out at Plateau Point while the green Colarado river roars mightily 300m below us in a steep drop. Credits for this shot goes to JKhoo |
|
| � | |
 | |
| |
 | Some play-acting at Plateau Point. "Murder he wrote" :P Credits go to Robin Low for this shot. |
After a break at Plateau Point, we made a turn back to retrace our steps. Ascending the trail is much more difficult than descending as we'll be going against gravity this time round. The norm is for hikers to allow for 2 times the time used in descending, for the ascent back up. The climb back up proved to be much more tiring and strenous. We had to take breaks often as we ran out of breath very quickly and our leg muscles were already tired from the hike down.
"Making stops along the way up was really interesting. The spirit of comradarie was high among us and the other fellow hikers that we meet along the way, as everyone was equally tired but exhilarated from the hike as well! Interacting with people of all nationalities and from all walks of life along the way certainly added a nice touch to these breaks of ours! |
| Reststop again! |
 |
| "A rare spark of energy when we had to avoid JKhoo's sprays of water at this reststop. By the way, this is taken in the interior of a reststop along the trail. Yah..this is how it looks like!" |
All pages are graphics intensive. Thanx a lot for your patience in letting the pages load! |
Next