With so much hot weather surrounding us these days, a blog escape to someplace cold and snowy might provide a temporary respite. Like Grand Canyon National Park in late December three winters ago.

The Grand Canyon is a place I visited and hiked in during more than one spring break as a youngster, including the most memorable outing when my whole family hiked the almost ten miles down to the Colorado River, spent the night at Phantom Ranch, and hiked back up to the South Rim, 5,000 feet above, the next day. Phew! That was a workout.

I haven’t spent much time there as an adult, although we did take our kids to visit a couple of times so they could experience the wonder of the Grand Canyon, so I was excited at my husband’s and my plan to spend a couple of days there in December. I was eager to see and photograph the canyon’s polychrome mesas and valleys with a frosting of white snow. I was excited by thoughts of how absolutely stunning the vistas would be. . .

However, expectations are sometimes dashed by reality. Below are some of the “views” that greeted us, and also bid us farewell. We knew the Grand Canyon was out there, but we never saw it on that visit.

We didn’t get the experience we were expecting, but we got a memorable one just the same.