One of the problems of waiting so long before writing is that the days start to blur and rest will have to wait now that we had joined up with Steve and Ellen. Campsites at the Grand Canyon are very popular this time of year, particularly with foreigners, so Steve had reserved two sites so that we would be together. They arrived a day earlier and had discovered that the campground was loaded with Pinyon trees and it was pine nut season! We were hardly settled before the foraging began! This whole process reminded me somewhat of gathering black walnuts several years ago. Swap out black walnut stained hands for pine pitch and driving over a bag of walnuts in a car to crack the shells with using pliers to carefully crack the husks around the pine nuts once carefully extracted from the cone! It's a lot of work for a couple handfuls of nuts but they are really good so hard to stop!
A couple days back, I realized that I had forgotten my day pack. It was one of those things that wasn't on the clothes, food or electronic list so we headed off to the camp store and then walked some of the Rim Trail around the canyon. Pretty amazing place. The following day, we biked further up along the rim but didn't make it past Hopi Point because of multiple stops including more pine nuts and searching for the elusive CA Condors, the largest raptor in the US with a wingspan of 9.5 feet. They have been reintroduced into the area about 14 years ago and now there are about 230 of them.
The following day, Steve, Ellen and I hiked down the S. Kaibab Trail to Cedar Ridge. It's only about 1.5 miles down but with an elevation drop of 1140' with lots of switchbacks, the climb back up for me was exhausting but well worth the effort.
One more stab at getting to Hermit's Rest at the end of the Rim Trail, Harry and I packed our bikes on the shuttle bus while S & E biked the distance and we all rode downhill back to camp. Still no condors but we saw the nest. Many elk around the campsite and mule deer along the rim. It was rutting season for the elks and I don't know if "bugling" is a part of it but we were hearing them constantly and it was an eery sound. The bugle is very high pitched and sounds much like the squealing of truck brakes! Even when close enough to see the elk's mouth move, the bugle doesn’t sound like it should be coming from such a big animal! It was a great visit with friends and after 5 nights we headed to the North Rim while S & E headed to Chaco Canyon and home.
