Phantom Ranch is where the mules travel to and from each day, here they have cabins and a cafe which was air conditioned and good for avoiding some of the heat! We saw so many lizards and squirrels down here! Pretty cool, except the snakes eat lizards which must mean there are some around here... at least we didn't bump into one. We didn't see any scorpions either.










The next day we woke up at 2:15am, having gone to bed really early (the sun sets about 7:30pm), to pack up the tent and eat some 'breakfast' so we could set off at 3am to hike back up Bright Angel Trail. We were originally thinking we'd set off at 4am but with the temperature forecast to be around 6°C hotter than the day before, giving highs of almost 40°C, we decided to just get going.

We weren't the only ones setting off at this crazy sounding time, so we joined up with another group until we reached the first rest point and the sun was up and we no longer needed our torches to light the way.












We came along that path!





We made it to the top at 10:15am, 7 hours after setting off!

Two Wednesdays ago we set off to hike to the bottom of the Grand Canyon, where we would camp for 2 nights at Bright Angel campground. It took us just over 5 hours to reach the campsite and as the day wore on it started to get really hot. We finally arrived around 2pm, set up our tent, cooled down in the creek and explored the river and beach area.