Day 29. Grand Canyon. Arizona

Hiking the Kaibab Trail

The Index of all 30 posts from day 1 of our #TeslaRoadTripUSA is HERE.

Today was our hike in the Grand Canyon, The South Kaibab Trail from the South Rim, turning at Cedar Ridge. About four hours, about three miles, about 1,200 feet in elevation, on a blustery day with high winds and extremely poor air quality.

The Grand Canyon is 277 miles long, up to 18 miles wide and attains a depth of over a mile (6,093 feet). The highest point on the rim of Grand Canyon at 8,803 feet. Point Imperial is also the most northern boundary of the park. The South Rim is located 80 miles northwest of Flagstaff (via route 180).

The South Rim of Grand Canyon averages 7000 feet/2134 m above sea level. The South Kaibab Trail leads all the way to the Colorado river. That takes all day, and typically is best done with an overnight stay. Instead, we opted for four hours. The sign reads: all trails into the canyon are steep and difficult; consider contacting a park ranger before starting your hike.

Ooh Aah Point
1.8 miles (2.9 km) roundtrip / 1-2 hours / 790 feet (230 m) elevation change

Cedar Ridge
3 miles (4.8 km) roundtrip / 2-4 hours / 1,120 feet (340 m) elevation change

The leading cause of death in the Grand Canyon is by medical problems, often heart related. Falling comes in at #2, with 40 deaths occurring between 2007 and August 2023. On average, 2.4 visitors die each year from falls. Men are more than 2.5 times as likely to die from a fall at the Grand Canyon than women.

The hike is steep and people are pretty silly along the way. Small wonder there are accidents. I noticed this story while writing this post. A couple died in Yosemite talking a selfie. You see the very best and worst of people in these spectacular National Parks, many of them from abroad, on this trip, most from Germany.

We were well prepared, hydrated, and with fully charged phones.

Here’s a video of the way down.

and a second video

A few pictures from the hike.

Tree pictures

Walking back we saw this confident snake cross the path

For our last night here we had dinner at the historic El Tovar. Reminded me a little of Gleneagles, the Railway Hotel in Scotland, albeit more modest in every way. There is an old train in front. Alarmingly for me there is much taxidermy when you enter.

A huge Bison head stares down balefully reminding me of the horrific racist scorched earth of the Indian food supply that almost entirely killed off the entire Bison herd, blighting the natural ecosystem irreparably.

In the mid-1800s, a cultural belief known as “manifest destiny” dictated that white settlers were the rightful owners of the entire North American continent, even though Native Americans had inhabited the land for centuries. In order to clear that land for white settlers, the US Army engaged in violent scorched-earth tactics against the Indigenous peoples of the Great Plains. One big part of that campaign was to eliminate their crucial food source: the bison.

Seeing this genocidal chapter of our History celebrated as trophies in a grand hall turns my stomach. I do not visit places that display dead Bison heads as art and will not be visiting the El Tovar until this celebration of scorched earth racist ethnic cleansing is removed.

There is a nice brass marker of the locations in the canyon viewed from the El Tovar grounds

Over dinner we saw the news of the ICJ starting the process of arrests for war criminals, starting with Biden’s partner in crime, Benny. Calling time on the horrific holocaust legacy of the Benny and Joe show, with it’s Taylor Swift Soundtrack and it’s millions of Blue MAGA Bidensta’s backing more genocide indefinitely.

Even as the list of genocidal atrocity grows longer than Biden’s nose, days after lawyers including Amal Clooney acted to start the arrest process for the genocide leaders, Biden doubles down on lying to Americans for his Zionist loyalty.

“President Biden has strongly defended Israel, saying its forces are not committing genocide in their military campaign in Gaza in a rejection of criticism from lawyers”.

“What’s happening in Gaza is not genocide. We reject that,” Biden said at a Jewish American Heritage Month event at the White House.

Biden has faced protests at many of his events around the country from anti genocide advocates who have labelled him “Genocide Joe” for his steadfast support of Israel.

Genocide Joe, who brought you more lies than Trump ever managed, is in freefall as an inveterate gaslight liar. “The beheaded babies”. “The raped women, who turned out to be pictures from a Kurdish atrocity ten months prior to the pictures he allowed shown from the White House.”

The “other team did it” when Zionists bombed a hospital and Joe said they have the most humane army in the world who would Never Bomb A Hospital. Right before they bombed every single hospital in Gaza.

Biden’s announced ‘there is no genocide going on’, not by genocide Joe, not by any genocidal Israeli Zionist. But then; Al Jazeera showed verified footage of IOF troops entering a morgue tent near al Shifa hospital (That ‘The Other team’ must have genocidally massacred patients in because it couldn’t have been Joe’s team), where bodies from the civilian massacre there were being stored. Israeli machine gun shock troopers in masks and body armour stole about a hundred corpses. Shipping them back to Israel. Out of sight of any war crimes investigators. Because there is no genocide happening. Clearly that’s why they stole those maimed corpses, some beheaded, some zip tied with cathaters still visible. Now no one will ever know.

Right. Joe said there is no genocide. Perhaps if he supports the ongoing assassination of every last journalist and the silencing of every last post reporting the extent of his ironclad support for holocaust genocide, then Palestine will mysteriously reappear as intact as it was before the Israeli Zionists delivered their payload of Zionist American bombs.

Biden’s claims that the genocide you see unfolding daily for over Seven months is not in fact a genocide because “Joe says so” still resonates with the dumbfounded Blue Maga Bidenista Swifties who stand dazzled by the blazing Ray Ban glare of his wrinkly mumbled gaslight.

Similar to how the Nazis tried to conceal evidence of their genocide in the camps in April of 1945, as their Nazi genocide cause was lost in the face of overwhelming anti fascist force bearing down on them. They to tried deny thier actions for fear of being held accountable. Funny enough, no genocider in history ever said anything other than “It’s not genocide unless I say it is. Which I wont”.

When it comes to the election of which Zio Nazi leader to choose in our Two party Corruptocrisy, Red MAGA’s can at least claim superiority knowing Trumps glamorous liar stooge idiot appeal. Trump makes it plain his lies are simply an expression of his racist misogynistic Christian character that so appeals to the intellectually and ethically disenfranchised American religious right still hoping the greed model of the American dream has some last drops of life in it now that the planet is irreperably depleted by our greed model of growth capitalism.

On the other side of the same coin, Biden’s lies are transparently the work of a past-sell-by gruesome Ray Ban octogenarian being played by his Zionist paymasters to mass murder children in the name of his Prosperity Jesus whose ‘Thou Shalt Not Kill’ memo is not Biden’s concern. Onward this Christian Zionist soldier, with the ironclad support of his Blue Swifties-for-genocide base. Willing to place his own entitlement to Nazi criminality above the international law that exists to stop exactly what he is guilty of. It can’t be genocide of Joe says; “It is not genocide. And. If you say it is. We will punish you. With bullets for reporters.

Bombs for samaritans feeding the hungry we created.

Chocolate rewards for any West Bank Settlers flying our F-16’s to bomb American Food Aid workers. And sanctions for any Palestinian trying to take legal action against us for breaking international law. Because we are the supreme all powerful entitled master race.”

The futures so bright Joe’s got to wear shades.

For good measure, when the ICJ announced the first round of war crimes charges. Blinken responded with a blackmail threat. Charge Israel and we will defund the U.N and defund the ICJ and we will stop all money going to Palestinians if they have the audacity to complain about us genociding them.

All of which can be relied on to not come to the attention of the BLUE MAGA SWIFTIE BIDENISTI silenced generation; so long as they kill all journalists reporting and silence all media reporting that is not exactly and entirely the narrative agreed between Tel Aviv and Washington.

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Our last pictures at sunset over the canyon from the El Tovar grounds

Tomorrow we drive the final leg of this thirty day journey. 500 miles back home.