Everywhere you go on the Vegas Strip, at any time of day, there are people trying to sell you tours of the Hoover Dam and the Grand Canyon. I spent some time with one of the more likeable and trustworthy-looking sales reps, and eventually chose a tour run by King Airelines. Yes, that's how they spell it: a-i-r-e-l-i-n-e-s.

The price on the leaflet was $309, but of course I ignored that. None of these leaflets have the real price on them, and they're not supposed to. The different agents, reps and one-stop tourist shops fight amongst themselves (pretty savegely) to offer the best discount packages, so no-one pays the printed price. If it's the kind of sport you enjoy, you can walk up and down the Strip trading one offer against another until you get the deal you want. As it happens, the tour I chose was so superb I would willingly have paid double the printed price.

At 8.15am a small coach arrived at my hotel. This took me and other tourists to a terminus where we all transferred to a larger coach which delivered us to Henderson air base. There, I waited around awhile and enjoyed a healthy, nutritious breakfast of Coca-Cola and donuts.

People fly from Henderson to the Canyon itself in small 12-seater planes, so there is a minor bureacratic crawl while everyone gets alloacted into suitably small groups. Having been thus processed, my group went outside to meet the pilot of our plane:

This is Adrienne, age 23, and about 4ft tall. She had pearly white teeth (sadly not captured by my camera) and ambitions to one day fly Jumbo jets. Adrienne was supposed to take us all through the usual safety rigmarole, but this was apparently not something she had a lot of time for. Her entire safety spiel went like this, "Okay, when you get on board there's like this card, you know, with all kinda safety stuff on it, so you can, you know, like look at it if you want, but it's kinda boring."

My group boarded the tiny plane, and Adrienne flew us out to the Canyon. I was wondering if the flight would provide good photo opportunities, and the answer turned out to be 'No, not really':

Nonetheless, this was my first view of the Grand Canyon, which was every bit as majestic, thrilling and awe-inspiring as I had imagined, multiplied by ten. There is nothing that can adequately prepare you for the sheer scale, grandeur and power of this incredible natural phenomenon, and no words that can ever do it justice. The Canyon overwhelms you, captures you and humbles you. Its sheer size is far more than any mind can take in at once, so the Canyon fuses your mind, defies your senses and awareness, and turns you into a stupefied, slack-jawed admirer.

Adrienne landed us safely at the Canyon's mini-airfield. There are various ways of getting from the Canyon rim to the base, which is a descent of about 1 mile. You can hike down, or even make the journey on a hired mule. Both of these options take several hours. As part of my chosen package, I was going to make the descent in a helicopter.

This takes approximately 90 seconds. Yes, that's right. One mile down, in one and a half minutes. There is not a theme park in the world that has a ride or attraction to match this experience. Here we go:

The helicopter pilots do this all day, every day. One party going down, the next party coming back up. They could probably do it blindfold, but I'm glad ours didn't try.

Having descended to the base of the Canyon, my party and I transferred to a river boat, and to the capable care of our river boat captain, Jodie.

Jodie took us a little way along the Colorado river and then killed the engine so we could appreciate the natural sounds of the Canyon (this was a nice touch). She also gave us a nice, friendly commentary along the way, with plenty of amazing facts and observational trivia. I was glad of this rare chance to take photos from the base of the Canyon.

It was then a case of reversing our steps - Jodie took us back to the riverboat dock, then we all waited a while until a chopper was free to whisk us back to the rim again - a journey no less thrilling going up than it was coming down.  

A large bus then appeared from nowhere, and took myself and a large contingent of fellow Canyon gawpers on a superb ride along the rim. It paused now and again so we could get out, stretch our legs and get a good look at all of the best views. Chief among these, without doubt, is the fabulous Eagle Point. I've done my best with the photo, but it is next to impossible to capture the brilliance of this formation in a picture. In real life, it is hugely impressive, and does look a bit more like an eagle with outstretched wings than perhaps the picture suggests.

The coach ride took us as far as the cheerfully-named Guano Point, where, in addition to more glorious gawping and photo opportunites, the tour people also laid on a truly first-class barbeque lunch which was suprisingly tasty. Guano Point features the remains of a winding station long since disused. It is the highest point to which one can climb. The views from the very top (yes, I made the effort) will live with me forever. It was also strange for me to think that I was lucky enough to see all this because I can do a half-way decent magic show.

A few stats: the Canyon is about 270 miles long, 4 miles wide at it narrowest and 18 miles at its widest. At its deepest, from rim to base is just about 1 mile. It is estimated that the Canyon preserves some 2000 million years of geological development.

And then? We just did everything backwards. Coach back along the rim to the Canyon air base. Light aircraft ride with Adrienne back to Henderson. Coach ride back to hotel. I can find no words to describe how wonderful, how perfect, how mind-expanding this tour was. My sincere thanks to all concerned.

And finally, for Adrienne fans, here she is actually flying the plane: