| But first we had to complete the 17 mile trip back to the main
road. Away from the canyon edge we passed through the forest where many of
the trees were now in the last throes of their fall colours. Snow is
expected within days which will close all these roads until next May. |  |
 | Some of the stands of
aspens had already lost their leaves and stood white and stark waiting for
winter. |
| Some of the stands looked the same but had had no leaves all year
as fire had swept through the area. |  |
 | In some areas the
trees had fallen, and here they were in a sheltered spot and were covered by
a light covering of snow which had fallen last night. Soon there will be 7-8
ft of snow covering this area. |
| So back across the elk meadows. We first had to drive seventy
miles north before turning east for another forty miles. |  |
 | Eventually we reached
a long run of Vermilion Cliffs (there are several falling off the Paria
Plateau). Here we turned south. |
| This gave us a view of an area known as the Painted Desert which
forms part of the Navajo reservation and just seems to go on for miles. |  |
 | There are more
vermilion cliffs off to the east as we head south down the US89. These are
Echo Cliffs |
| All along this road as we headed down to Cameron were cliffs
rising up to the Kaibito Plateau. East of here is just empty and is mostly
the Navajo and Hopi Indian reservations for the remaining 200 miles of
Arizona. |  |
 | Some of the cliff
formations are quite impressive and have features worthy of a longer stay
and investigation. But we were now short of time and daylight was fading. |
| Eventually at Cameron we were able to turn back west for the
fifty miles to the Grand Canyon Village centre. Here, looking north, the sun
is low in the sky which really makes the canyons look deep and mysterious. |  |
 | At these latitudes the
transition from day to night is very fast, and you go from light to dark in
a matter of 30 minutes. |
| We just managed to arrive at the park entrance with the last of
the light and were able to catch the Southern Watchtower in the dying rays
of the sun. We still had another 20 miles to go and then finding a site when
we got there proved to be more difficult than we had expected. We finally
camped in pitch black. |  |
|