–From the Guide to Grand Canyon National Park, handed out to all park visitors.
Here, where almost nothing is real, I see the first sign of really wondrous things to come.
Across the Strip, from my room on the 29th floor of the Chrysler (or was it Empire State?) Building, is a boxy, windowless building proclaiming “The Grand Canyon Experience.”
Quickly leaving New York, New York (the hotel, hotel) I cross 10 lanes of traffic for a look. There, on several levels, is a collection of shops split by a faux gulch closer in scale to the infamous potholes of Chicago than the famous abyss in Arizona. But you can shop in air-conditioned comfort for Western/Indian handicrafts and Grand Canyon pictures, T-shirts, mugs and refrigerator magnets–and you can take home all these been-there-done-that souvenirs of our favorite national park and North America’s greatest natural wonder without wasting the time to actually go.
– – –
“The Grand Canyon’s just a big hole.”
It is two hours later, and we are on a tour bus to the Boulder City airport when a fellow passenger tries to cut an air of nervousness with this line.
There is a certain uneasy anticipation in seeing for the first time something so universally and thoroughly described, photographed, praised and honored that it renders the articulate speechless (or ought to). And maybe that is what he is reacting to.
Or maybe it is the announcement that on our 1 1/2-hour trip over the western end of the Grand Canyon we will not be flying in a 19-seat, two-engine plane (“all seats window seats”; “all pilots over 2,000 hours”). Instead we will be going out in single-engine, five-passenger Cessnas.
At the tiny airport–an airstrip, to be precise–the pilots divvy us up by weight and explain we’ll be flying at 5,500 feet for a closer view, though if it really gets bumpy we’ll move up to 6,500 feet. We also are briefed on where to find the air-sickness bags and urged to use the toilets before departing. And, by the way, how many of us have been in a small plane before? Not many, it seems. But no one bails out.
After taxiing with side windows mercifully open in the 106-degree desert heat, we wait our turn, then take off and climb over Lake Mead, heading for the upriver end of that man-made reservoir where Grand Canyon National Park officially begins.
The transition is both gradual and abrupt.
Lake Mead slowly tapers off into the Colorado River while the walls of the canyon rise dramatically as we ascend several thousand feet with the Grand Wash Cliffs, the great dividing barrier. Behind us, there had been mountains with crests and peaks rising out of the desert floor, but nothing solid for the river to carve. Now we are over the southwestern edge of the Colorado Plateau, a giant uplifted landmass covering northern Arizona, southern and eastern Utah, western Colorado and northwestern New Mexico. For millions of years rivers that had nowhere else to go cut into the plateau, producing not just the Grand Canyon but tens of thousands of square miles of Canyon Country.
Here, as we fly over the fleet of tables–mesas, actually–swimming in this big hole, it is as if the earth had been given a flattop before the Colorado made its massive part.
For a half hour we table-hop our way through this end of the canyon, looking a half mile down on the river and its gorge, then skimming a few hundred feet over the upthrust mesas resembling Texas or Australia or nothing in particular. And then we turn back to Lake Mead, Hoover Dam and Boulder City.
We have seen only the last 70 twisting miles of the 277-mile-long canyon. We have come nowhere near the North and South Rims and their famous views. But no one has needed the air-sickness bags, and no one has been disappointed.
It sure beat the view from a jet–the closest most of us in the Cessnas have gotten before. And for those who won’t have the time to see it later from the ground, it sure beat that Las Vegas version…
But I am lucky in this not always so lucky town. I have five days–enough time to see the North Rim and the South, enough time to see it all around.
– – –
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Leaving Las Vegas is easy. The route to the North Rim starts fast, and traffic is sparse. Interstate Highway 15 (speed limit: 75 mph) passes through a fairly ordinary desert until, after a bit more than an hour, it practically collides with the Virgin Mountains. Then it gets interesting as it winds with the Virgin River through a handsome gorge, past the last casino signs, through a little corner of Arizona and on into southwestern Utah.
St. George, gateway to three national parks, is the last “big” city (1990 population: 28,502) travelers on this itinerary will see for days. Get your Burger Kings and Big Macs here, because you won’t find another fast-food franchise till you get to Tusayan on the other side of the other (South Rim) side.
Just beyond St. George the route exits the Interstate and passes through Hurricane (where in this arid world did they get that?), taking a right when the road to Zion and Bryce Canyon National Parks goes left. Steadily climbing with every mile, this road soon leads back into the most isolated area of Arizona, the Arizona Strip, a 150,000-square-mile stretch cut off from the rest of the state by the Colorado River, population density: 1 person for every 40 square miles.
Though you can see for mile after starkly stunning mile without a sign of human habitation, I get stuck behind a school bus for 10 miles as the treeless road rolls on and upward. Except for that bus, it’s an easy drive and, with the West’s higher limits (65 on these U.S. and state routes), a quick one.
Three-quarters of the way, the road shifts into a more dramatic gear as it climbs the ladder of elevation markers–5,000, 6,000, 7,000 feet–into Kaibab National Forest. At Jacob Lake, 50 miles from the North Rim, I break off from this through-route across the north of the state and head south on America’sgrandest dead-end road, the only road into this part of the park.
Finally, there are valleys and cliffs splitting the plateau. And a curtain of spruce, fir, pine and aspen broken every few miles by grassy meadows–the first real good-sized patches of green since Las Vegas’ golf courses.
The excitement grows. Something spectacular is out there, just in front or off to the side, but even as mileage markers pointing to the North Rim dwindle to single digits, I can’t see the canyon for the trees.
Then, five hours after departing Las Vegas and minutes after almost running down a wild turkey, it’s there. Behind the parking lot of the Grand Canyon Lodge, I get my first, limited view of a side canyon. A couple hundred feet more, beyond the final barrier for cars, and there’s more–the main canyon, in all its glory. Look down a mile. Look straight ahead 10, or to your right or left 20 miles…or 30…or more. It is too much for words, though just right for one.
Grand.
Like just about everyone, my first hike from here is a short one–a quarter mile each way to Bright Angel Point. It’s an easy trail and paved, and supposedly handicapped accessible, but there are no guardrails most of the way, and the gradient often is downright steep. Those of us with acrophobia proceed cautiously. I am not embarrassed–until I see a woman in an electric cart zip by on her own. (She must have good brakes; I later see her alive and well at the lodge.)
Whether from the lodge or Bright Angel Point, the view from the North Rim probably isn’t quite the view you’ve seen in most pictures, which usually come from the South Rim, only 10 miles away as the raven flies. Nonetheless, this one is just as impressive–and far less crowded. Few bus tours make the haul up here, because the South Rim is so much handier for mass tourism, nor do many individual tourists casually stop by, since the North Rim isn’t really near anything else. As a result, only 400,000 people visit this rim each year–less than a tenth the number that hit the other side.
It’s been that way from the beginning. Spanish explorers first reached the South Rim in 1540. It took another 236 years before a European “discovered” this side.
There are other reasons than isolation for the smaller count. At 8,000 to 8,800 feet, the North Rim is 1,000 to 1,500 feet higher than the South. Though, arguably, this could make for a superior view, it unarguably makes for a cooler one. In summer, that’s wonderful, with temperatures averaging 10 degrees cooler than on the South Rim and rarely exceeding the mid-80s. But winters are mighty cold and snowy, and the road to the North Rim and all its facilities are closed to everyone except the hardiest of cross-country skiers and snowshoers from the first snows of fall (usually mid-October) until the roads are cleared in spring (usually mid-May).
The North Rim also is twice as far from the river, only tiny portions of which can be seen from the North Rim and then only from limited viewpoints.
What you do get to see in closeup on this side are the canyon’s famed “temples.” Surveyors in the late 1800s, entranced by these eroded, terraced buttes and mesas that looked like exotic religious monuments, dubbed them with religious names of the East–Brahma Temple, Zoroaster Temple, Isis Temple, Thor Temple, Vishnu Temple. Aside from the entry highway, there’s only one other road, with a spur, that visitors can drive. Follow Cape Royal Road to its end (23 miles from the visitor center), then take a hike. A 0.6-mile trail leads to a massive natural arch, Angels Window, then on to Cape Royal, the southernmost lookout point on the North Rim. Or take that spur to Point Imperial (11 miles), at 8,803 feet the highest point on either rim, where you can see the Little Colorado River Gorge–and all the way to Marble Canyon, the northeasternmost part of the park.
– – –
That first night in the canyon before dinner, after the day-trippers have gone home, a small crowd of overnighters gathers on the lodge’s terrace to watch the sun set. It is strangely quiet, and then, just as the last slice of sun disappears behind the far western rim, dozens of shutters click at once, as if like cicadas they were all on the same timer.
Later, I move into the dining room, where the waitress, with a sly smile, congratulates me on getting a table overlooking the canyon. I have, of course, the classic “Grand Canyon at Night” postcard view–a view of pitch black nothingness. But after dessert, back on the terrace, there really is, on this cloudless night without the ambient light pollution we have come to expect elsewhere, a view to remember. From across the canyon, three tiny clusters of light dimly mark the presence of man on the South Rim, while, overhead, from across the cosmos, a million points of light brightly mark man’s absence.
– – –
The drive from the South Rim to the North Rim takes another five hours. At Jacob Lake, the route rejoins the only road across the Arizona Strip, this time heading east.
After a series of steep downhill twists and turns, the road leaves the forest and trees behind, emerging at a lookout point where the Vermillion Cliffs to the north and the Echo Cliffs to the east frame a desert valley between. From several thousand feet above, it looks like an unbroken, easy shot east. But somewhere out there in that broad, flat valley, if the map is to believed, is the long, northern finger of Marble Canyon, the northeasternmost extremity of the Grand Canyon. Even though it can’t be seen, it is big enough and deep enough so that the only way to get around it is to skirt it to the north.
And the road does, following the Vermillion Cliffs for 30 miles until it makes a sharp turn east at the little hamlet of Marble Canyon and crosses the only bridge over the Colorado River this side of Boulder City. By Grand Canyon standards, Marble Canyon is neither wide–only a few hundred feet–nor deep–470 feet. But this is where the Grand Canyon and the park begin. From here, the Colorado descends from 3,116 to 1,936 feet on its 277-mile journey to Lake Mead.
Having only nicked the top corner of the park, it will be another 100 miles of driving through the Navajo Indian Reservation (where signs touting “friendly Indians” mark roadside “trading posts” for tourists every few miles) before the next–and most famous–views of the park begin.
– – –
More than three hours after leaving Kaibab National Forest behind, another separate segment of it appears as the South Rim draws near. But this part of the forest isn’t quite as high, it’s drier–and it shows. Pinyon pines and Utah junipers–trees suited for a desert–dominate.
For visitors doing the circle tour on East Rim Drive, Desert View–just inside the east entrance–is either their first or (more commonly) last view of the canyon. At 7,500 feet, it is the highest viewpoint on the South Rim, and there’s no trouble here (or at most other places on this side) seeing the river.
It is also, for someone coming from the North Rim, the first view of a Canyon that, if not overly crowded, is certainly busier. I’ve missed the summer rush by a couple of weeks, so while there are people everywhere, there still are spaces in the parking lot, spaces at the railing. It does get a little crowded on the steps of the Desert View Watchtower, however, as visitors climb the 1932 structure of vaguely Indian design to see what a difference 70 feet will make in the view. (Not much, but it’s only a quarter.)
East Rim Drive continues for 25 miles to Grand Canyon Village with lookouts at Lipan, Moran, Grandview, Mather (nearest the main–south–entrance and, thus, busiest of all) and Yavapi Points. Unlike the North Rim, where canyon views from the road are limited, roads here on the South Rim come close enough–and vegetation is sparse enough–that you can see most of it without getting out of the car.
But most of us do. At each, the view is panoramic, stunning, breathtaking, better than the pictures and just subtly different from the one before. But the grand parade from one parking lot to the next gets wearing, so in Grand Canyon Village it’s time to ditch the car and catch the “black bus” for a 15-minute ride to Yaki Point, now off-limits to private cars.
The change is striking. Forced to abandon their vehicles, only a dozen or so people are wandering around the lookout. Even that’s too many for some of us, and we wander off a few hundred yards for a place of our own. I find a secluded spot on the rim and watch on this windy day as clouds drift by at eye level, changing the canyon’s colors with their shadows, while cackling ravens ride the updrafts below.
It seems so natural, so peaceful, so like the experience we expect but rarely get in our national parks that I can almost pretend not to hear the occasional far-away sound of jets passing overhead.
The next day I take the bus again–the “red bus”–for the West Rim Drive from the Visitors Center to Hermit’s Rest. This is not by choice. From spring to fall, private cars aren’t allowed on this narrow road. Soon they will be banned year-round.
You can see why at the Visitors Center.
An exhibit shows what it can be like in the height of summer when 6,000 or more cars a day may enter the park–and what the park plans to do about it. Next to photos of cars and tour buses trapped in a gridlock that is far from peaceful and parklike is a rendering of the new light rail system expected to be completed by 2004. Once that is in place, day-use visitors will leave their cars and tour buses at a transit center in the town of Tusayan, just south of the park, for much of their tour. (Car potatoes won’t be completely excluded; East Rim Drive, a state highway, will remain open to private vehicles.)
You can see the difference already on West Rim Drive. And hear it. And feel it.
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On this 8-mile route, the parking lots are empty. No slamming doors to break the mood. And when you get to the edge at one of the drive’s eight lookouts, you’ve almost got the canyon to yourself.
– – –
To really get the canyon to yourself, of course, you have to hike into it. Or, perhaps, take a mule.
Descending even part way into the canyon is an arduous hike. Going all the way to the canyon floor means camping overnight or a stay at Phantom Ranch Lodge (both of which should be arranged in advance). Inner canyon temperatures can soar to well over 110 in summer, and then there’s the climbing back out when your legs, your heart and your head can all experience the effects of altitude. You have to be in shape to make this hike.
Like most visitors, I’m not. And I don’t.
Instead, before leaving, I drive 9 miles south to Tusayan, the gateway town for the park complete with a McDonald’s and a Pizza Hut, a Best Western and a Holiday Inn. And, right next to the Taco Bell where I have lunch, an Imax theater is showing “Grand Canyon–the Hidden Secrets.”
It seems strange to be watching a 34-minute movie, no matter how big, of the Grand Canyon when the real thing is so much bigger and so near. But, with its emphasis on river rafting and canyon rather than the rim, it is as close as most will come to the bottom of this place.
With this final Grand Canyon experience under my belt, I head back to Las Vegas on the southern route, a trip–like the other drives around this big hole–that takes five hours.
The wonder of it all–of the drive and the North Rim and the South Rim and the chunks in between–isn’t in seeing it in any one way or in the best way. The wonder is seeing it for yourself.
E-mail Randy Curwen: [email protected]