OK, it was REALLY hot, like miserably hot, and that’s not the weather that made the Grand Canyon so memorable. It was the clouds and the rain and the lightning that made one of the world’s greatest masterpieces even more spectacular.
One day, we spent an hour sitting on the edge of the canyon watching a thunderstorm roll in far in the distance. Dozens of people attempted to capture the lightning strikes with their cameras or iPads, but I don’t know if any around me was successful. I was fortunate enough to catch two different strikes thanks to a fast shutter and a tripod on my SLR.
Our first full night we rode out to the west rim to catch the sunset. A monsoon came out of nowhere, and we were miles from shelter, virtually alone on the rim of the canyon with lightning strikes and torrential rain coming down. We were freezing cold and drenched when a bus finally arrived to take us back to camp, but there were too many passengers for it to move so we waited out the storm, crammed about two times as many people as should be on a bus, and laughed at the situation we had gotten ourself into.
When we made it back to the shuttle transfer station, we saw a rainbow. A fire and warm dinner (vegetarian brats!) were the cure to the cold, and we had a great first night at the Grand Canyon.
Teardrops & Ales 