On the way to Tent Rocks, we got hailed on, and by the time we got there (several miles on a gravel road) it was raining a bit, so we didn't go far, and resolved to come back later in the trip.

So the next day, we made it to the Painted Desert and the Petrified Forest. There's a segment of road parallel to the highway with a bunch of overlooks and trails.

More desert...

A trail down into some clay hills. It had rained recently, so these hills were soft to the touch, and felt somewhat like pudding.

And then to the petrified forest.

That afternoon we made it to the canyon, and I got my first view.

The next day, bright and early, we headed to the Bright Angel Trail for a day hike. The trail had suffered a rockslide a month earlier, and had only recently been reopened. It was extremely icy at the top, and muddy most of the way down, this being an unusually wet winter.

The second picture shows our goal: the point of that triangular green plateau in the middle of the picture. You can see the trail faintly.

Down to the plateau...

When we got to the end, this guy was waiting for us. He wasn't particularly worried about our presence.

The river was still quite a long ways down. It wasn't in the cards for us to make it all the way, since we hadn't been able to reserve a place at the bottom, and we weren't prepared to camp.

Time to head back. The way back was a bit harder.

Great pictures, HM! :thumbsup:

I so have to go there. I just have to stock up on camera batteries and CompactFlash cards.

The next day, I wasn't up for much walking, so we drove down the rim trail, and visited the overlooks. That first photo was from one such overlook. Here are a few more:

The weather got progressively worse. By the time we got to the end, visibility was zero. Later in the day, we wandered up to the gift shops and galleries, and saw many tourists who hadn't been lucky enough to be there before the fog rolled in.

The next morning, the fog had cleared somewhat, so we went to an overlook that looked over the Bright Angel Trail we had walked two days before. We started at the little building you see at the top left.