HIKING A PIECE OF HISTORY

Hiking the Grand Canyon had always been at the top of my bucket list, and it didn't disappoint. Myself and a good group of friends of mine spent a day hiking this formidable landscape...

It all started with a 4am wake up call to drive to Mather Point - a great tourist lookout point where you can see the sun rise in the East. Close by to the Grand Canyon Visitor Center, it's also a great base to begin a hike down into the canyon.

It was about 6am when the sun started to rise, and after an hour or so of being mesmerised by this magnificant show of nature, we gathered our things and headed to a trail.

When you want to hike in at the Grand Canyon, there's lots of various routes you can take... some steeper with more shade, or other which have a gradual decent but with no drinking water or shade. We opted for the first option and this was the Bright Angel Trail. Sure it was steeper, but it provided water, a compost toilet and shade at our 1.5 mile finishing point.

We had started trekking down into the canyon around 7am, as this is the best time to avoid the midday heat. If you can you need to have hiked down and hiked back up before the hottest part of the day. Our route was one of the most popular paths on the south rum, so obvious it was also full of people later on in the day, so in my opinion... the earlier you go the better.

Before you decided which route to talk, there are detailed descriptions of how much water you will need etc by the visitor center, and these diagrams are so important. The hike we did was only to the first stop down and it took around 4 hours to do a round trip. If you're looking to camp at the bottom of the canyon near the Colorado River, you'll need park permits and a few days to get yourself down and back up again.

There are also various different buses which will take you from the visitor center to your trail start point. These are so useful and a vital resource. They can also take you back into the town of Tusayan where most peoples stay just outside the National Park.

If you're thinking whether or not to spend a day hiking in the canyon, I'd definitely recommend it. I'm not the fittest person on earth so if I can hike it you can! You won't regret it - it was the most challenging but rewarding day ever!