I wasn’t flying myself, so while it doesn’t entirely fit in with the theme of my blog, I couldn’t resist writing about my recent Grand Canyon helicopter tour from Las Vegas.

I’m going to keep it short and let the pictures do most the talking.

The limousine that was sent to collect me from my hotel, (always a nice touch) dropped me off at the airport which took around 5 minutes. Check-in was a simple ID check, while standing on the scale that was built into the floor. There was a nice lounge area to wait in where they showed the safety video and after about twenty minutes, the pilot came to collect my group.

Another 5 minutes of a quick safety demonstration on the apron, and we were strapped in and ready to go.

The tour leaves the airport, quickly blasts over the strip and then heads off towards Lake Mead.

Approaching Lake Mead

The view from the front seat.

The view was awesome and this quickly brought us to the Hoover Dam, which is much smaller than I expected, but cool regardless.

Hoover Dam from the front.

A quick lap brought us around to see the back of the dam.

Onwards and to the entrance of the Grand Canyon. The scenery was already amazing, but was now starting to get to the point of spectacular.

A short ride on from the dam, we were at the entrance to the Grand Canyon.

Starting to get into the good stuff.

Crazy to think, that’s the river that carved the grand canyon

Time for lunch. We landed in the canyon for a picnic under the shade and a glass of champagne.

This was the view from where we had a picnic.

We then jumped back in and set off for the Grand Canyon airport to refuel, giving us a view along the top and from the other side of the canyon.

We then went back, roughly along the same route, back over Lake Mead once more.