Shoe blog

Shoes on the Canyon Trail

It is annoying when I have to sit and listen to someone else rave about her fabulous, incredible, stupendous, exotic, whatever vacation when I had to sit in the heat and not go anywhere, but after this post I promise I will quit.  You all know what a fiasco my shoes were, so let’s look at other shoes in the canyon.

Most people wore some version of this shoe. I think these are Teva but I saw a few Keens.  They seemed to perform well for an all purpose water, climbing, sand shoe.  This hairy legged boy climbed all over the Canyon walls.

Another shoe that was popular was this sandal.

This woman did admit that she did scrape her toes, but overall she was happy with them.  Another shoe  type on the raft was a water shoe.  This man didn’t climb over many rocks but he did go through creeks and whatnot.

You can see in the background, the ribbing and velcro sandals that were very popular. The guides wore Chaco ribbing and velcro sandals or Chaco  flip flops. (I saw one guide climb all a wall wearing flip flops.   I think he was half  mountain sheep.)

These were the feet that made everyone stop and look.  Mostly because they take a lot of room.

The first time I wandered down a South Rim trail, I expected to see gorgeous views,  with the challenge being rocks that were washed out.  What I had forgotten is that the mules use this trail.  I think there are about 4  teams that go up and down the trail a day.

That means you smell mule s**t all the way down.  I know Brighty has been on the trails for longer than I have been, and will continue to be on the trail long after I am gone, but you do have to pay attention to  not step in the mule biscuits.

So the next time you go to Arizona, please, please, please, take time to go to the Grand Canyon.  Make sure you go down the trails.  You don’t have to go all the way to the bottom,  just spend 10 minutes to see what is beyond the guard rails.   You will be thrilled.