Grand Canyon

During spring break of 2010, I went with my university's Outdoor Adventure group on a backpacking trip in the Grand Canyon.  All I can say is that it was a blast.
One of my favorite, non-electronic, passtimes is camping and backpacking.  I love living off what I carry on my back, and looking up at the night sky and seeing all the stars.  Living in Houston, with all the smog and light pollution, you can't see very many stars.  But away from civilization, there is the quiet, the beautiful scenery, and the awe inspiring yet humbling view of the night sky.
We took a couple of days to drive there.  When we got to the rim, there was snow, and we had to go down the trail carefully for the first couple of miles, until we got out of the snow.  Thank God for trekking poles and instep crampons.  As it was I kept on slipping and landing on my hiney.  We stayed the first night on Horseshoe Mesa, went down the next day and stayed near a spring, and then covered a lot of ground the third day, going around Horseshoe Mesa to another spring.  On the way, we stopped for an overview of the Colorado River.  That was a neat sight.  The next day was a short hike, but brutally uphill.  Since there were no water springs on Horseshoe Mesa (where we were going to spend our last night), we had to carry two days of water with us.  We spent that afternoon relaxing and exploring, and enjoying the beautiful day.  The last day we hiked out and reveled in our victory.  As the t-shirt that I bought says, "This body hiked the Grand Canyon."  

The biggest surprise while backpacking was the weather.  We were expecting it to be a lot warmer than it actually was.  The last couple of days it got warm, but the second morning in the field it snowed on us. 

The top picture is a self-portrait from the overlook that we stopped at to get a view of the Colorado River.  It is one of my favorite pictures of all time.  I think it's really neat how the sky is reflected in my sunglasses.  The bottom one is from earlier that day, while we were rounding the tip of Horseshoe Mesa.