Organize Find Share
Grand Canyon, June 2008
grand-canyon-jun2008
(created on 06 July 2008)
Slide Show
Helicopter Tour of Grand Canyon, Las Vegas, NV, June 20, 2008. A van picked us up right at the Mandalay Bay hotel and drove to the Executive portion of the McCarran Airport, which is literally 5 minutes away from Mandalay Bay. After a short orientation we met out pilot Tony. Turned out Tony used to fly copters for offshore drilling companies, but it was his first day on the Maverick Helicopter Tours job! We were his 2nd tour that day. Maverick helicopters are nice! Air conditioning, sound system, lots of windows, comfy seats. I ended up up front, right next to Tony, on the way to the Grand Canyon. Since there were a lot of people who signed up for that time slot, there were 3 helicopters in our group. We flew a bit over the main strip, then turned towards lake Las Vegas and Lake Mead, flew over an old and abandoned magnesium mine, then right over the Hoover Dam and a small volcano, and then onto the Grand Canyon! We landed inside the canyon and Tony opened a couple bottles of icy-cold champaign. Almost instantly, we had a chipmunk and even a gecko begging for food! I can understand a chipmunk running towards people looking for a tasty morsel, but a gecko?! It was a ridiculosly hot day, just like the rest of that week in Vegas. We spent maybe 15 minutes inside the canyon and then flew back to Vegas. On the way back we approached the city from its Nothern side and flew right over the main strip---nice!
