Last full day at the Big Ditch

We came, we saw, now we are wentin', well, tomorrow we will be moving on anyway. I have taken a bunch of pictures and hit most of the spots on my list that I wanted to here on the South Rim. There are a couple that only have access by Shuttle Bus and I never got near them, to many people I expect. It is probably a lot like Lake Louise or Moraine Lake back home, shoulder to shoulder folks all looking for a unique picture, and I don't deal well with crowds anymore. This morning I just ran up to a roadside pullout that has an iconic rock formation, they call "Duck on a Rock" for obvious reasons, it does kind of have a rubber ducky type of vibe to it.

Although I could see the rubber ducky in my minds eye the pic above, Ducks on a Rock, is for those of my readers who don't have as good an imagination or maybe a need to try out this new AI in the photo world. Here is the real shot.

This afternoon I ran back over to the Grandview Point, just to see what the Canyon looked like from that vantage point in the late afternoon before sunset. I have found sunrise to be a lot more calm and almost zen like, the crowds are not up and at it that early in the morning except for those most popular and accessible sites like Mather Point and Yavapai. In fact some mornings there have been only one or two others out there before the sunrise. There were a couple of nice vista's one straight across the valley and the second back to the eastern end of the Grand Canyon, capturing the meanderings of the Colorado River and for the eagle eyes a shot of the Desert View Watchtower in the far off distance.

One thing I have noticed is that most of the folks out picturin' these views are using their iPhones and a few years back I would have wondered why bother, but the newest models do a great job of capturing images and are even pretty easy to post-process and send back to those not so lucky as to be there with you. The shot below was back at the camp via my phone and Starlink well before I even packed up my real camera's and headed home.