We’ve worked out a few more details for our trip to Arizona later this year where the principal aim is for the family to take our Wilderness First Responder medical training. The overall trip will be just over two weeks to fit between the end of Ben (older son’s) summer classes (some complex biochemistry course that’s beyond me) and Sam’s (hopefully) first day at college.
Given that we’ll be based in Flagstaff, the two trips we really want to fit in are Meteor Crater and the Grand Canyon. The former we can fit in on our day off in the middle of our medical training. The latter will be a longer trip. I inquired into the availability of accomodation at Phantom Ranch at the base of the canyon and they have no vacancies. We have therefore decided to camp at the bottom. I have my wilderness permit request ready to fax to the rangers on April 1st which is the first day they process requests for August. We will trek down on the first day, stay the night at the Bright Angel campground (close to Phantom Ranch). Day 2 we’ll make our way to Indian Garden for night 2 and on the final day hike back out. Looking forward to this.
In addition we hope to pack in some trips to the areas around Flagstaff. Sedona is on the way to/from Phoenix which we’ll be flying into. In the evenings, after training, we’re hoping we can visit places such as the Francisco Mountains which are nearby.
We have booked our hotel while in Flagstaff. We’ll be staying at the Drury Inn & Suites near the center of town. It’s a new hotel and we got a great deal through Travelocity.
This is going to be an interesting part of an interesting year. To say the least.
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