There’s no such thing as overprepared... (Yes there is.)

Flagstaff, AZ
5S1L

So, I like to be extra prepared? So I can imagine a million disaster scenarios, but not the obvious happy ending?
Colin was very patient getting ready to go down the canyon. The snow on the highway made me flash back to getting caught in a storm in the mountains in Spain. I was wearing loafers lined with plastic bags. A couple of the Swedish hikers were wearing tshirts and bike shorts. We were lucky to get out unscathed.



So I did carry a pack full of first aid and a sleeping bag etc etc all the way down the Grand Canyon. But the snow and ice only lasted for the first 1/2 hour. After that, it was balmy weather, and a wide if exhausting path downwards.



Lots of wildlife, including a mule deer resting beside the path, and a group of four big black vulture-looking birds with numbers attached to their shoulders.



California Condors! It’s hard to believe, because they’re so fantastically rare... Only 300 alive, and 125 or so in the wild. It turns out a trainee mule fell off a cliff near our path a while back, and that’s what brought them in. I’m glad we didn’t hear about the mule until we’d made it out. The cliffs were disconcerting enough already!