Day 5: Friday, September 8, 2006: Day 1 of Grand Canyon Hike

Tanya and Lana at Grandview Point on the South Rim. We are packed and ready to head down the Grandview Trail towards Horseshoe Mesa and eventually Hance Canyon where we will spend the night.


Looking down on the easy beginning of our trail. :-)


After we crossed over to the east side of Horseshoe Mesa we joined up with the Tonto Trail and hiked past 2 parts of the abandoned Last Chance Mine. Hance Canyon is named after John Hance, one of the owners of this mine. Here we are in front of one of the entrances.


The mine entrances are near Page Springs, where we were able to fill our water bottles with DELICIOUS, fresh spring water. Here you can see our guide, David. (We jokingly called him our "slave", as he insisted it was his job to do EVERYTHING for us! We sure weren't used to be waited on in such a manner, and it took a while to sit back and let him do the work...but we adjusted fairly well. ;-)


After a bit more hiking we arrived in Hance Canyon for the first night.Tanya and I were camped in the clearing near the rocks on the left. David set up the "kitchen" in the clearing on the right. Behind where Tanya and I were camped there was a pretty steep little wall that went down to a creek.

While David set up camp, Tanya and I were tasked with "relaxing", enjoying ourselves and encouraged to go look around Hance Canyon, the side canyon we were in. We wandered down stream a bit and then were looking for a more secluded area. I wandered over a little knoll and suddenly heard a distinct buzz. Now, I have never before in my life heard a rattlesnake rattle...but my brain KNEW what that was! Sure enough, about 8 inches from my left foot was a Grand Canyon Pink Rattlesnake. Yikes! Needless to say, I made a hasty retreat, (Tanya claims I about knocked her over, but the truth is, she wouldn't move, just stood there laughing at me!) David thought it was really cool that I got to see one of the snakes close up...he spends about 180 days a year in the canyon and only gets to see about 8 or so. After the fact, I suppose it was cool, at least since snake behaved himself and didn't strike. :-)

(I am trying to upload some photos of the above incident...but blogger is not cooperating. Check back for more later.)