Good morning, everybody.
Good morning.
We're Allison and Eric from The Endless Adventure,
and we're coming at you once again with DW Travel.
You all know that we have been on a road trip, traveling all around the USA, trying to see
as much of this country as we possibly can.
And our road trip is continuing today.
And we are taking you guys along to one of the literal wonders of the world.
It's the Grand Canyon!
Winter at the Grand Canyon is sometimes called the secret season, and that's because the
skies are clearer, the temperatures are cooler, and most importantly, there are far less people.
The canyon tees around 6 million visitors a year, but the number drops the lowest between
December to February, which means it feels like you have the canyon all to yourself.
We can't wait to show you how beautiful the Grand Canyon is.
But first we have to get there and we could just drive, but that's boring.
So we're doing it the same way they did in 1901 via the Grand Canyon Railway.
This morning we woke up to a full on blizzard y'all.
The wind is just blowing harder than I've ever seen it.
It's just whipping all this snow all over the place.
It's so bad that all the roads into the Grand Canyon seem to be closed.
So the railway really is the only way to get there.
And it is open rain or shine or snow or shine in this case.
We actually heard it's only closed twice in its operating history.
So this thing goes no matter what.
So that means we get to go to the canyon and no one else can.
This train has several different types of cars.
So at the front, you're going to find the coach cars.
Then in the middle, they have the higher end cars.
And one of them even has a bubble dome
where you can get like 360 views of the surrounding land.
And then back here, you're going to find the luxury parlor car.
And the reason we chose this one is because they have a full private bar.
But probably most importantly, they have a little observation balcony.
You can step outside on and see all the surrounding nature.
Sadly, right now, we're literally driving through a blizzard, so you can't see that much.
But it's cool in its own way.
I feel like I'm in an episode of Mad Men or something.
This train has real couches.
Fancy train car, fancy cocktails.
All right.
We're doing Grand Canyon in style.
I feel like I just need a ball gown now to match it all.
We had an incredible time riding on the Grand Canyon Railway.
But we have arrived to the main event, the Grand Canyon.
And I think we're seeing it in a way that very few people get to see it.
It is so incredible the way that the fog is hanging over it.
There's like clouds in the air.
There's mist revealing a few peaks off in the distance. It's like a monster movie.
I feel like some tentacles or some giant legs are going to come crawling out of the mist, you know.
I know that there's snow piled everywhere.
We were in a blizzard this morning.
It's the dead of winter.
But, man, it is totally worth it to see the Grand Canyon
in a way that very few people get to see it.
You'll notice there's a lot of snow up here at the top of the canyon.
But if you look down into it, there's no snow whatsoever.
And that's because we are at such high elevation that any
precipitation getting down there would just turn into rain.
So you get this amazing snow scape up at the top
and then this beautiful lush landscape down at the bottom.
Even though it's 15 °F (-10°Celsius) up here,
it's probably a nice, balmy day at the bottom.
Oh, my word, y'all.
Confirmed: the views here never get old.
Yeah, it's like everywhere you go, you just turn to this side.
And you're like, holy cow, there's a giant canyon!
She just kind of fell in some deep snow, and her boot is full of snow now.
It's fine, it's fine.
At least we aren't in a blizzard anymore.
Some of these little cliffside points are kind of terrifying, though, because it's covered
in snow right now because it's the dead of winter.
And you never know if this is just going to avalanche right off or not.
But now we are going to shift gears
and we are going to do what most people come to the canyon to do.
Take an epic hike.
So people are not the only thing you'll see on this trail.
If you're lucky, you'll actually see mules traverse seeing the canyon.
If you do happen to come across the mules on the trail, make sure you stay to the high
side of the trail, stay perfectly still and give them plenty of space, because I think
they can spook easily and we don't want any injuries on the trail.
But a very safe way to see them is to come to their pin, which is at the start of the trail.
And you can give them all the ear ribs you want.
You've got a new best friend.
I don't ever want to leave.
I think, though, he's trying to get into my backpack. Smells our sandwiches.
This is the South Kaibab Trail.
There are a few people on it, but I imagine this gets so much more packed in the summer.
But man, this trail is nuts because right now it is complete snow packed on most of the trail.
Yeah, instead of being packed with people, it's packed with snow.
There are some parts that are nice and muddy and gravelly, though.
And so far, we've been able to keep a good bit of traction.
But this trail winds down through all these switchbacks, through this canyon.
Can we keep traction through that?
That's the question.
We'll see.
Definitely if you come in the winter, have poles or the crampons for your boots.
Otherwise, you might be able to just sit and slide down the whole thing.
You might not survive it, but yeah.
It'd be a wild ride.
Alright. We made it as far as we can with this foot gear.
But now we are going to strap on our crampons.
They recommended these before we started the trail.
We didn't know how easy it was going to be, but it's just sheer ice out here, y'all.
And we are done sliding down this mountain.
This is why you always want to be prepared when you're doing a hike in the Grand Canyon.
You don't want to be this guy.
Sunburned, and he's puking his guts up.
This sign is actually about not trying to make the hike all the way down
to the Colorado River and back in one day.
Because I think it's easy to underestimate just how strenuous of a hike that is,
especially the way back up.
Luckily, it is not crazy high temperatures because it's the dead of winter.
That's one of the positives of being here in wintertime.
Guys, we made it to the lookout.
This is called Ooh Aah Point.
And it is approximately 1.9 miles from the start of the trailhead.
So it's a really good day hike.
You can make your way down here, then make the arduous journey back up.
And you'll notice: we have it all to ourselves.
That is the beauty of coming to the Grand Canyon in the winter.
Go check out this viewpoint.
Why, you guys, this was 100 percent worth the hike?
Probably top few we've ever seen in our entire lives.
The video doesn't do it justice.
Just how deep this canyon is.
I mean, I'm sitting right on the edge and it just feels like I could fall forever.
But you lose all sense of scale.
You can't tell how far away anything is.
It's, well, I feel like 'Ooh Ahh' is actually Ooooh Aaaah!
Because this is this is scary and amazing and... wow!
So as I'm sure all of you already know, the Grand Canyon is a national park.
And it was given that designation by congress back in 1919.
But the thing we love most about the Grand Canyon is that when you stand at the rim looking
into it, you lose all perspective.
It's so deep and so vast that you can't actually assess just how big it is.
But to attempt to put it into perspective the canyon is about
277 miles long (445 kilometers) and over a mile deep (1 kilometer).
This thing is big, y'all.
So what caused this Grand Canyon?
Well, the Colorado River actually runs through it and they believe that it wore down the
canyon walls over time.
How long did that take?
Well, anywhere between 5 and 70 million years.
But one thing's for sure, it took a very, very long time to carve out this incredible canyon.
To illustrate how the canyon was built
we have a nice little mini canyon being formed right here.
Imagine this happening for millions and millions, possibly a billion years.
That'll turn into another little Grand Canyon or big Grand Canyon.
It's grand.
You get it?
It really is all about perspective.
To an ant sitting right on the edge of this.
this is already a Grand Canyon.
Y'all we're just walking along the trail here, and we ran into a herd of elk.
This is amazing.
They're so much bigger than the deer we're used to seeing
all over the country.
And they make some of the funniest little yelping noises.
They are so comfortable with people.
They did kind of look us in the eye a couple of times.
But they just went about their business.
They really don't care.
They walk right in front of you on the trail.
They walk right by you and stop at a tree like a few feet from you.
So you get a pretty close view of them.
We hope you all enjoyed coming and exploring the Grand Canyon with us,
even though we only exploit the tiniest bit.
You can stay here for years and still never see the same sights, I feel like.
But most importantly, we hope that we have inspired you all
to come and see the Grand Canyon for yourselves.
We promise it will not let you down.
Man, that wind really picked up just now.
It's wild.
Oh, my gosh.
And we're conveniently sitting right on the edge of the rock.
I'm also just going to hug this rock untill it stops.
OK, we'll see you in the next one.