As the story goes, when 16th Century Spanish explorers became the first Europeans to see the Grand Canyon, they deemed it a terrible waste land and doubted anyone would want to visit it again. Although it took a few hundred years, they were eventually proven to be very wrong. According to the National Parks Conservation Association, Grand Canyon National Park was second only to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in number of visitors in 2012. I’ve only been there three times and have hiked down to and camped at the bottom only once, but I would gladly return again. If my legs were a bit younger, I’d ask them to carry me down and back one more time. All of the images in this gallery are from the South Rim.
