Only a few hundred feet below the South Rim, the sound changed as I hiked with my husband along the Bright Angel Trail.
I felt an overwhelming sense of peace when I heard a few birds chirping. Voices and the clip-clopping of mules disappeared into the abyss as they passed by us.
We took up serious hiking in our 40’s and this was our first day hike longer than 4 hours. We are slow. It took us 12 hours to hike down to Plateau Point and back out of the canyon! I am more afraid of heights than I used to be, but I found that my hiking poles helped keep me connected to the ground and gave me something to hold onto. We chuckled at ourselves when we saw young people jogging down or up the trail in open sandals, but we were so proud to have carried through with our own goals, and went back to hike there 3 more times.