Grand Canyon Adventure
It had been many decades since my last visit to the Grand Canyon and Alison had never been, so on somewhat of a whim, we packed up our brand new Macan and headed straight from Nova Scotia to northern Arizona, a drive of some six days going all out with no real sightseeing stops on the way. Was it worth that kind of effort? Damn right and here’s why.
The Grand Canyon – What’s the Big Deal?
First of all, let’s figure out what the Grand Canyon is not. It’s not the largest canyon in the world. That honour goes to Yarlung Tsangpo Grand Canyon in Tibet which is also the deepest on earth. The Grand Canyon is not even the deepest in the United States. Hell’s Canyon on the Snake River, which my son Dale and I visited some years ago, is 8,000 feet deep compared to 6,000 for the deepest point of the Grand Canyon. Heck, go to Peru and you’ll find the Colca Canyon which is 11,500 feet deep (3,500 metres) in places. The Grand Canyon is not the longest on the planet either, that’s the only recently discovered Grand Canyon of Greenland that clocks in at 750 kms. (466 miles) and is buried under thousands of feet of ice so nobody will be visiting it anytime soon. So it must be the widest right? Nope, that would be the Capertree Valley in Australia that is 30.5 kms. (19 miles) wide, just nosing out the Grand Canyon by a kilometre. In terms of the Guiness Book of Records the Grand Canyon wins no gold medals.
The one thing the Grand Canyon does win hands down is the number of annual visitors which is now up to almost five million post-Covid and has been as high as 6.38 million before that. So just what is it that brings this many people to what is a pretty remote area of northern Arizona?
Well let’s start with a strictly scientific answer. It’s one of the best places on the planet to observe The Great Unconformity. Say what?
The Grand Canyon is made up of a series of sedimentary layers that are up to 250 million years old. These layers sit atop metamorphic rock that is over one billion years old. The only problem is that there are no rocks of any age between those formed over a billion years ago and those formed over 750 million years later. So the Great Unconformity is a geologic mystery – where did those intervening rocks go or did they even exist?
But I doubt many people say to themselves, “I’m going to the Grand Canyon to see The Great Unconformity.”
The answer is surprisingly simple and even the U.N., not known for praising anything First World related, agrees. UNESCO in designating the Grand Canyon a World Heritage Site in 1979, described it as ‘the most spectacular gorge in the world’. Yes, the answer is that simple. Nobody who hasn’t spent their life under a log will not immediately recognize a photo of the Grand Canyon. The combination of the colours of the 40 or so sedimentary layers and the effect the sun has on them as it rises and sets leads to landscapes that change before your very eyes.
What follows are my tips for getting the most out of a visit to the Grand Canyon starting with when to visit. If you’re like me, the last thing I want to do is visit a place when it’s completely overrun with visitors and for the Grand Canyon that’s May through September, although even April and October are still quite busy. I picked early November for a specific reason – you can usually find a place to stay in one of the seven lodges at Grand Canyon Village. Staying in the village means you can walk to the edge of the canyon, don’t need to worry about parking or taking the shuttle bus and generally enjoy the place early in the morning and in the evening when the hundreds if not thousands of daytrippers have not yet arrived or have left. Also, the weather, while cool in the morning, heats up enough that by noon it is very pleasant and even hot on some days.
Even in early November only two of the seven lodges had vacancy and we were lucky to get a three night reservation at the Maswik Lodge which is fairly simple accommodation amid a pleasant pinyon pine forest only a five minute walk from the canyon rim. It has an onsite food court, pizza pub and gift shop. If I had reserved much earlier, I might have snagged a room at one of the lodges that have rooms overlooking the Grand Canyon such as the historic El Tovar, and that would have been my first choice.
Here’s my second tip – enter Grand Canyon NP via the eastern entrance and not the southern.
You can see from this map of the park that there are two entrances at the South Rim, one just south of Grand Canyon Village on a road that comes up from Williams and one at the very eastern edge of the park that can be accessed almost directly from Flagstaff or by a number of routes coming from New Mexico or Colorado. I chose to eastern entrance because it sees only a fraction of the entries that the south entrance does. When I booked our accommodations there was an advisory that even at this time of year there could be waits of up to three hours to enter the park.
Avoiding the south entrance we drove from Farmington, New Mexico through country I was very familiar with even though I had never been here before. This area is all within the massive Navajo Nation Reserve and the fictional stomping grounds of Navajo policemen Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee from the late Tony Hillerman’s many novels set on the reserve. At Shiprock we passed the Navajo Tribal Police headquarters where Joe and Jim were stationed. If you are interested, Jim and Joe are now featured in the excellent Netflix series Dark Winds which does a very good job of bringing these two characters to life.
Aside from seeing Ship Rock in the distance there are any number of classic southwestern geomorphological features to be seen on the way to the Grand Canyon including Baby Rocks.
And this butte and mesa not far from Monument Valley.
Arriving at the eastern entrance we found only one car ahead of us and paid the $35 USD entry fee which I later converted into an $80USD National Park pass which we used multiple times on this trip.
The first stop at the Grand Canyon coming in from the east is Desert View where you’ll find the Watchtower which looks like it might have been constructed by Indigenous engineers hundreds of years ago. That’s not entirely wrong as architect Mary Colter did use similar towers at Hovenweep and Mesa Verde as her inspiration for this tower which was constructed in 1932.
Even in November the parking lot is almost full and there are a lot of people waiting in line to ascend the Watchtower so Alison and I opt to go directly to the canyon rim for our first look at the Grand Canyon.
Now I don’t care how many countries you’ve visited or how many of the Earth’s great sites you’ve seen, your first look at the Grand Canyon will always blow you away. Here the Colorado River emerges from the narrow Marble Canyon and explodes into this magnificent 18 mile wide expanse that is the beginning of the Grand Canyon.
This is the view looking west.
This is also your first chance to get a shot of yourself at the Grand Canyon as you can see from photo I used as the header to this post. It’s also where you’ll find a plaque commemorating one of the worst airline disasters in American aviation history. Right overhead on June 30, 1956 a United Airlines DC-7 collided with a TWA Constellation killing all 128 people aboard, the worst aviation disaster to that point in the country. I have flown over the Grand Canyon a number of times on my way to or from Los Angeles and always loved the view, but it gives me the creeps to think that on that day in 1956 that’s exactly what the passengers were doing only moments before their deaths.
OK, enough with the outre.
From Desert View there are multiple stops for more canyon viewing before you arrive at Grand Canyon Village some 37 kms. (23 miles) away. On the second stop you get a look back at the Watchtower which looked huge when you were there and now appears insignificant in this vast expanse. This did remind me of a bit of O’Brien’s Tower and the Cliffs of Moher on the west coast of Ireland.
If I put up pictures of every stop this post would go on forever so I’ll just show a few more including this view which is one of my favourites. There are many places from where the Colorado River is not even visible or barely so like this one.
In others you get a good look at the river and might even spot some rafters such as the ones in this shot. For all its vaunted ferocity the river looks pretty serene at this bend.
In case you are wondering how far down those rafters really are here’s me at the edge of the Grand Canyon on the spot from where I took that photo.
Eventually you will get to Grand Canyon Village and put away the car keys and continue your exploring on foot.
I have booked a mule ride for the following day, but in order to complete your reservation you need to weigh in (literally) the day before at the Bright Angel Lodge, a National Historic Landmark designed by Mary Colter, the same person who designed the Watchtower.
It’s a great place to poke around with a really good gift shop where Alison bought Grand Canyon clothing for our three grandsons who we will visit in Montreal on the way back to Nova Scotia.
This area is really the focal point for most tourists who either decide to hike a portion of the fabled Bright Angel Trail which descends 7.8 miles (12.6 kms.) to the Colorado River.
Or stick to the 13 mile (21 km. ) Rim Trail that is paved and has multiple lookout points to get yourself sated on these unbelievable views. As the sun gets lower the shadows grow larger and you could convince yourself that you are looking at a body of water such as that on the right. Usually I religiously observe the rule of thirds in editing my photos, but this shot is a rarity where a 50/50 split does work, at least I think so.
It’s also a great time of day for getting great personal photos at the Grand Canyon as I think this one of Alison attests.
South Rim Mule Ride
We’ve ridden horses, donkeys and camels, but never a mule so I have us booked on a two-hour South Rim mule ride, a service that has been offered in the Grand Canyon for almost 150 years. One of the advantages of visiting at this time of year is that you don’t need to book months in advance like you might have to from April through October. In case you don’t know, mules are an infertile hybrid between a male donkey and a mare that have more stamina and brains than either of their parents. However, they are infamously stubborn.
The trip begins at Bright Angel Lodge where you need to check in by 6:30 AM for the ride that begins at eight. We got this great view walking from the Maswik Lodge to Bright Angel Lodge.
The reason you need to get to the lodge 90 minutes before starting time is that there is a bus that arrives at 7:00 AM that transports the group, in our case only six, to the Yaki Barn some fives miles east of Grand Canyon Village. One of the best reasons for taking a mule ride at this location is that it is dedicated to trail rides only and unlike the Rim or Bright Angel trails you won’t be inundated with other tourists. In reality it is a peaceful and historic way to appreciate the Grand Canyon.
Arriving at Yaki Barn we are shepherded to the corral where this somewhat foreboding looking figure awaits us. If this was a spaghetti western we’d be in trouble, but it’s not and we are introduced to Zee who will be one of two guides on the trip.
As noted, the previous day we had been weighed at the Bright Angel Lodge and the mules we will ride have been pre-selected. Alison gets Dingus, a female mule with whom she immediately hits it off.
I get a male named JonJon who refuses to look me in the eye.
After a few tips on mulesmanship, like how to steer them and make them start or stop, we are off with Zee giving me the advice not to let JonJon try to stop and browse along the way. Even though he has something like a muzzle on, apparently that won’t stop him from trying.
The first ten minutes or so is a relatively uneventful stroll through the pinyon forest to the South Rim. Now this where you are going to get your adrenalin rush on this mule ride because in places the mules are only a few feet from the canyon’s edge and a fall of a couple thousand feet. We’ve all seen scenes of mules going over cliffs in multiple westerns and the thought cannot help but enter your mind.
There are a number of stops along the way and the mules are stopped facing the canyon. Something like this.
The only problem for me was that JonJon kept tugging me and him closer and closer to the edge in search of something to browse which of course was right on the cliff’s edge. When I pointed this out to Zee she said don’t worry JonJon has no more desire to go over the cliff than I did. With this reassurance I turned off my lizard brain and my heartbeat returned to something close to normal.
Just like steering a car, you are supposed to keep both hands on the wheel when riding a mule which means there are only a few opportunities to take pictures. This is the Grand Canyon from a mule’s eye view.
All told you spend two hours in the saddle which is plenty if you are only a novice rider and not used to having your legs spread apart for extended periods. For us it was the highlight of our visit to the Grand Canyon and one I highly recommend to anyone who wants to get away from the crowds as ten is the maximum number of guests on any one trip. To book your mule ride go to this website.
Well that concludes our all too short visit to the Grand Canyon, but better to have spent some time there than none. Adios and we’ll see you next on the golf course at We-Ko-Pa in Scottsdale.
