It was already warm and the temperature was climbing. The Grand Canyon is at a higher elevation, so we weren’t going to be facing even 90’s. Unfortunately, that was three hours away. We had scheduled two days at the park, so we set our minds to get as much done as we could, boondock, and finish the rest on Tuesday, June 27th.
We stopped at a Dollar General in Williams for supplies. This is the town you pass through as you leave the freeway for AZ 64, the highway leading to the park. Dollar General don’t have much of a selection, but we picked up some frozen fried chicken, a package of sliced hard salami, couple of gatorades for Shar, and a package of kielbasa. By 11:00 we were passing through the south entrance to Grand Canyon, saving $35 by using my veteran’s pass.
We quickly saw that we had picked a good day to visit the park. Traffic hadn’t been bad as we approached, and we were able to find a parking spot in one of the three main parking areas. Hopping out of Austin, we grabbed our day pack and took the short walk to Mather Point to get our first view of the Grand Canyon.
It’s truly one of the natural wonders of the world, and doesn’t disappoint. A distant second is the awe I felt seeing Crater Lake for the first time as a boy. We could immediately tell that it’s also an international tourist location. Within 5 minute we was no longer surprised by the variety of cultures and languages we were continuously hearing around us.
We walked the Rim Trail west for almost a mile to Yavapai Point and the Geology Museum. I would learn later from Google that 12 deaths occur every year at the Grand Canyon and quickly saw several examples of the why behind that statistic. Whole families were out on sheer drop off points with no guard rail.
The museum taught us about the formation of the canyon and had an equally amazing view of the canyon as well. I felt much better about looking so close to the edge with some glass between me and certain death.
The park has an amazing and free public bus system that can take you to most parts of the South Rim area. It’s broken into three colors, so instead of walking we just hopped on the Orange Route that stopped nearby to the museum. 10 to 15 minutes later we got off at the South Kaibab Trailhead, saving ourselves three miles of walking.
The South Kaibab Trail, or SKT, is the path into the canyon famous for it’s donkey rides, and has signs that indicated such. We stopped at an information kiosk about the hike and it didn’t take us long to realize neither of us were equipped to handle this trail. Just going down 0.7 miles to the first “stop” is like descending 76 staircases. This kind of climb would have taking us close to three hours, and we would have gained nothing that we couldn’t see from the rim. What eliminated me most were the sheer drop-offs. My fear of heights builds up, and I would have been close to panic by the time we even gotten a hundred yards down trail. We laughed as we looked over the edge the trail, and decided that if the premise was “Hiking into the Canyon”, then going the 50 feet down to the first switchback accomplished that task. Here is the selfie proving that we “hiked into the canyon”.
Now that we hadn’t spent upwards of three hours hiking into the canyon, the fact we had started our day in the Grand Canyon so late no longer mattered. We had made up that time. While we waited for the Orange Route to return, we found a water filling station, and made plans to return with BC for a refill. Our next point of interest was located at the eastern end of the South Rim, Desert View, so we got back onto the bus and returned to Austin. It’s about a 30 minute drive along the edge of the rim with a half dozen additional overlooks. We didn’t stop at any, figuring that we would on the way back if we thought it was necessary. How many times do you have to look over the edge at the same view of a canyon after all.
Desert View has a focus on the Native Peoples who call the canyon area home. Here you also can find The Watchtower that gives you an opportunity to see the canyon from a higher perspective. I don’t know if the tickets cost extra, but the entry is only every 30 minutes. The next available was 45 minutes away, so we were out of luck, not wanting to wait around that long.
So we went out to take in the east end of the Grand Canyon, which is literally breathtaking. I caught myself saying “OMG”, it was that amazing. Desert View is definitely my favorite part of the park.
Our next destination was the Imax theater in Tusayan, the commercial area/town 6 miles south of the park entrance. We got there and quickly realized that this “Visitors Center” wasn’t connected to the NPS system as we believed. We like our money going to improve our park system, so we got back into Austin and returned to the Grand Canyon Village and it’s park store instead.
This is also when we realized how close to finishing in one day our point of interest list. We had skipped the SKT hike, the Imax theater turned out to be a bust, and the Visitors Center in the park with all the exhibits to read had closed at noon for some reason. The Park Store was still open, so getting our souvenirs was still accomplished.
We were getting pretty hungry by then, so we made some wonderful chaffle salami sandwiches for a 6pm supper, battling the gusting winds that had blown all day. After cleaning up we jumped on the Blue Route this time and took a ride across the park. It was a short walk across the street to transfer to the Red Route which would take us the rest of the way west to the Hermits Rest viewpoint. We would never reach that destination.
As I have already mentioned the bus system is wonderful and not once did we meet a driver who wasn’t friendly, knowledgable and patient. It is also obvious that the end of the day is well practiced because buses stop running at sunset. It was also clear that this routine is focused on getting all the visitors back to the main park area. My favorite line from our driver was “If you miss that last bus you have two choices, walk back or call a cab.” The buses also stop dropping people off at certain viewpoints a half hour before sunset.
We were focused on seeing the sunset on the Grand Canyon, so we got off at Powell Point for a short five minute walk to Hopi Point. Most of the 70 people on our bus continued on to Mohave Point, another good spot for sunset viewing. Watching the sunset in the Grand Canyon must be a popular event because it didn’t take long for almost 200 people to be sitting and standing around the viewpoint with us. I shudder to think what it would look like during a busy time of the summer.
While it was romantic and all, the most the setting sun did was throw a few sun rays off canyon walls and didn’t change the coloring as I was hoping. It was still a wonderful shared experience with Shar, and the 200+ strangers gathered around us.
We didn’t managed to be in the 70 people that got onto the first of two busses parked at the viewing area, but we did get seats on the second bus. Like I’ve mentioned, the park service has the end of the Grand Canyon day down to a science, and there were two empty buses ready for visitors at each sunset viewpoints ready to load. You don’t get any choice in returning location either, everyone gets dropped off at the same spot. Which was fine by us, since it was where we wanted to go anyway. The buses continue doing u-turns until everyone is back.
We walked across the street to where the Blue Route starts and got into the line. When a bus showed up about 5 minutes later, we got on, but found no seats left. We had just found a standing spot in the back when the bus driver called for anyone going straight to the main visitors center. This saved us half a dozen stops, so we joined the group heading to a bus parked ahead of us. Shar chatted up a black lady from Texas, while I sat relaxing. In no time we were on AZ 64 heading towards the eastern exit from the park.
It was the first time we had taken a park entrance sign selfie in the dark, but we wouldn’t want to break this longstanding tradition of ours. Back on the road we set a timer for 20 minutes. This would be the start time to start looking for boon docking spots. We ended up finding a good one just off the road 15 minutes later. Converting Austin into Sleeping Mode went quickly, and we curled up for the night. It hadn’t been a hot day and when we laid down it was only in the upper 60’s, not hot enough to prevent sleep.
Places visited at the Grand Canyon:
Mather Point
Rim Trail
Yavapai Point
Geology Museum
Powell Point
Hopi Point
South Kaibab Trailhead
Desert View Watchtower
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