Grand Canyon Mule Trip

It was with some trepidation as my wife and I made our way to the front desk of the Bright Angel Lodge to confirm we were available for the mule trip that descends into the Grand Canyon.

Our story begins nine months prior, whilst reading about thing to do at the Grand canyon, My wife suggested the mule trip as the ultimate excursion, well we booked it {you need to book well in advance} It was’nt cheap about £100 each for the 1 day excursion to a place called Indian Gardens, deep in the canyon
Back in the lobby of the Bright Angel Lodge we signed various waivers, were issued hat’s and ensured the staff we had enough water for the trip.
We headed off to the coral which is situated at the top of the trail. The previous day we had walked about a mile down the trail and believed we knew what to expect.

Being city slickers our only experience of riding was on a donkey on Weston-Super-Mare sands, but I think this was going to be slightly more challenging.

Arriving at the coral we were in for a shock, believing a mule was about the same size as donkey, don’t be fooled some of these beasts were as big as a horse but body shape, well more like barrel.

A wrangler came up to us and asked our weights and an appropriate sized mule was assigned to each of us {a party size of about 12}. My mule looked the biggest and was called Dopey and me and Dopey were to bring up the rear of the party, my wife’s mount – Spunky- was just in front of me. We were issued various instructions about keeping the mules together, not letting the mules head turn to far {apparently if you let the mules head turn to look back it gets spooked, it believe it is going in the wrong direction, then charges in that direction to catch up with all the other mules. {not}

Anyway of we set , wow these mules are definitely sure-footed, they have to be for some apparent reason they like to walk right on the edge of the trail. That’s great until their heads go down whilst they are looking for food and you get a birds-eye view of oblivion. As you peer into this bottomless void..
I try and steer my mule in a little bit, the results being it now wants to walk so close to the canyon wall that the skin is removed from my leg on every turn.
The views are spectacular. The wrangles are full of information, and my butt is as sore as hell.

We arrive at Indian Gardens for a short break and we all dismount, Most of us are walking around rather bow-legged until the blood circulation in our lower body restarts. We then start of to our final destination a point about 1 mile away across a plateau for a most spectacular view into the inner canyon.

UNMISSABLE

It takes a while to ascend back to the coral, but the trip is definitely worth it.

Funny,in the bar that night it quite easy to spot who has been on the mule trip
They are all walking like John Wayne