Below is my 'favorite' image from my most recent trip to the Grand Canyon. The ISO / camera mean the overall detail and sharpness is nowhere near as good others I took that day, but this one marks a big moment in the day....

I was the coordinator of a 7 day, six night tour with about 40 students from my school and roughly 10 adults. Since we live in Texas, only 2 nights were in the park, and only one full day to explore and hike. I took a smaller group of 24 kids on the Bright Angel Trail, planning to go roughly 6 miles down the trail to an spot that is a nice river overlook, and then back up the 6 miles. This group included an 8th grade girl who I / we could not convince to skip the hike. She was a lovely kid, but physically suspect, so I crossed my fingers and let her come along (as no teacher is going to tell a 14 year old girl 'you are too out of shape').

Sure enough, she began having lower back spasms about 30 seconds before we stopped at the overlook. The spasms, fatigue, and failing optimism meant that she and I (the group left us FAR behind) took an additional SEVEN hours to hike the six miles back out. The following photo was shot about 10 minutes from the rim and it will forever be a reminder of a very overweight teen who learned what it means to 'just keep going' and who learned that she was far stronger, emotionally, than she had thought.

A long day and long shadows.....