Camping at the Grand Canyon

It's been a long winter without as much snow as we'd like to see so by the time the last chair fell silent we were ready to get out of town. Dave took a week and hit the east coast to spend some time with his dad while I stayed home to work and pack for the next adventure. I happen to be a very OCD packer and made a very comprehensive list to ensure our comfort for our adventure. We also packed a ton of food as my research didn't yield much for gluten free friendly dining at the park.

We loaded the 4Runner full of dogs, gear, flip flops and food and headed southwest towards Grand Canyon National Park. We had four nights booked at Mather Campground at site #308 in the Pine Loop. I'd been keeping an eye on the weather and the forecast said we were headed into warm weather.... but the first few nights were below 30. This would have been fine but our sleeping pads deflated and offered no cushion and more importantly insulation from the cool ground. We had three sleeping bags for the humans so we bundled up and dealt while the dogs had a shared bed and a few blankets. They have doggie softshells and wore those each night as the sun and temperatures dipped. Mayhem did crawl into a sleeping bag with me one night while Chaos's thicker coat served him well.

Grand Canyon is one of the more dog friendly of the National Parks and the dogs were allowed on the paved Rim trail for some great walks each day. They joined us for a sunset at Mather Point and enjoyed attention tourists across the world. Mayhem had played rough and cut a paw so he wore his Ruffwear shoes to prevent further injury to his pads. He had a lot of folks laughing at him but overall enjoyed the attention. After sunset the parking lot cleared out and we took the opportunity to play ball with the pups. We found a new light up ball which rocked Mayhem's world and allowed him to get some serious energy out at night. It made some great photos in the dark parking lot with the dog's glowing collars and the disco light ball.

We had a ton of photos from the little s6000 and from the D100 and each worked our skills a bit. We narrowed it down to the highlights from sunrise to sunset and a bit of Chaos and Mayhem.