The Desert Southwest

At the starting point: Grandview Point on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, about 10 miles east of Grand Canyon Village.

The most breathtaking scenes of the Grand Canyon are usually when the shadows start to cast across it. The amazing part is that this happens every day.

Ready to go...

Company on the first day: photographer James Q Martin and videographer JB Benna of Journey Film. They were sent out by GoLite; James also joined me in Colorado and Flagstaff, and at the finish.

Along the Tonto Trail, which contours along the broad Tonto Layer, just above the Inner Gorge.

The Inner Gorge of the Colorado River. Most of the Grand Canyon is sedimentary rock, namely limestone (calcium deposits from dead marine animals), sandstone (consolidated sand), and shale (consolidated mud, silt, or clay). The Inner Gorge is an exception: it is a tortured and gnarled metamorphosed rock known as Vishnu Schist.

Another beautiful evening along the Tonto Trail.

In "The Man Who Walked Through Time," author Colin Fletcher talks about the "yings and yangs" of the Grand Canyon. No where will you better understand what he is talked about than along the Tonto Trail, which on the maps looks like a sawblade as it follows the Tonto layer around side canyons of the main canyon, which itself has side-canyons, which itself may have more side canyons. It is possible to throw a baseball across some of these side canyons, yet you may have to walk .5 to 4 miles before reaching the other side.

The Grand Canyon was an excellent place to start this trip: I knew that the scenery would not always be this good, but I was inspired by knowing that many times it would be.

The South Rim of the Grand Canyon is at 7,200 feet, which makes snow a possibility even into early-April, when I was there.

When snow falls over the Grand Canyon it looks like a sprinkling of powdered sugar by Mother Nature.

Once I emerged from the Big Ditch I headed south across the Coconino Plateau, which is a vast expanse of mostly flat, dry, uninhabited land at 5,500 to 7,000 feet. It is a mix of open grassland (a prime summer range for cattle) and piñon-juniper forest.

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