Aerial Exploring the Grand Canyon (mostly pictures)

Location: Duck Creek RV Park (el. 1,700 ft); Las Vegas, Nevada

(click pictures to enlarge)


One of the things I wanted to do while in Vegas was to take an airplane tour of the Grand Canyon, Hoover Dam and Lake Mead. I believe the Grand Canyon is one of those things that is best seen from the air. I could have driven to the edge and looked over the side but I would have only seen that one spot. I also could have went to the new skywalk, but I read that you can't take anything with you when you go out onto the skywalk, not even a cell phone (camera). Taking all of that into consideration, I decided an air tour would be the best thing.

The plane took off from the Boulder City Airport a little before 2:00 p.m. The plane had about 20 seats but only a dozen people were on the tour. It would have been very claustrophobic if every seat had been used. There were scattered showers in the area which created some turbulence, but overall it wasn't too bad although a couple of the passengers thought otherwise. I took the Nikon 5100 but never even took it out of the bag using my cell phone instead. 

There isn't a lot to say about the Grand Canyon. It was apparently cut by the Colorado River over a very long time. Along the lines of "learn everything; question everything", it makes a person question how that happened when viewing it from above. There are hundreds of tributaries leading into the Grand Canyon, each nearly as deep as the canyon itself and some very long in length. These tributaries only have rainfall to cut them, and that rainfall is scarce around here. I realize it has taken a long time to cut the canyon and conditions change over that span of time, but I was just wondering.

I was in the next to the last seats so this view is almost all of the plane. The guy in the blue hoodie had a tough time with the flight. 

View before reaching the Canyon

Hoover was on the opposite side of me on the way out so I had to lean over to get this one. The picture is framed by the window. 

Long slopes

Some of the back-water from Lake Mead

Roads were everywhere and led to who knows where.

That is the Colorado River in the bottom

Hoover Dam was on my side of the plane on the return trip.

Everything associated with Hoover Dam

Hoover Dam with Lake Mead in the background

Here is a selfie for Olivia Grace, Tucker Wayne and any other future generations so they will know what the crazy ole man looked like back in 2015.

Ya'll take care of each other. I'll Cya down the road.