The gorge lives up to its hype, wowing even the most jaded travelers with its majesty and enormity. It truly is one of the great wonders of the world.
Grand it is. Oh-so-grand!
It was my first time visiting the Grand Canyon, and though I expected to be impressed, I really didn’t plan to spend the whole day there. My initial thoughts were to gape at the big hole, take some pictures, cross it off my bucket list and leave.
Walking along the Canyon Rim Trail from morning to sunset, however, I couldn’t take my eyes off the multicolored formations in the big rugged abyss that seemed to stretch to infinity. Every viewpoint merited a new round of picture-taking as the interplay of shadows and light on the pastel layers of rock created an ever-changing palette of hues and textures. It was a feeling of awe and reverence I’d never experienced at other natural wonders, and I sensed that fellow visitors felt that way, too. In short, the Grand Canyon—a hard place to wrap your head around—was everything I hoped it would be, and more.
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Grand Canyon National Park sign
Grand Canyon: A Slice of Scenic Splendor
It’s no wonder that Grand Canyon National Park, an instantly recognizable symbol of the Southwest, is one of America’s most popular national parks. Attracting six million visitors a year, it can be a busy place, especially in summer on the South Rim, which draws lots more people than the remote North Rim. My visit to the South Rim (altitude 7,000 feet) was in late October, so the crowds had let up a bit, and the weather (in the 60s) was perfect for hiking.
The national park preserves more than half of the vast canyon located on ancestral homelands of 11 present-day tribal communities. At 2,600 square miles, it measures slightly larger than the state of Delaware.
Carved over eons by the force of the Colorado River, the gorge is about a mile deep and up to 18 miles wide. Within the canyon, the river averages 300 feet from side to side, but it looks like a mere trickle from high above. From its headwaters in the Rocky Mountains, the river flows for 1,400 miles to the Gulf of California; 20 percent of its course (277 miles) winds through the Grand Canyon.
For most park-goers, the first gasp-inducing glimpse is from Mather Point, a short walk from the Grand Canyon Visitor Center, where the 24-minute movie Grand Canyon: Journey of Wonder provides good orientation. Mather Point juts out from the edge, offering ringside seats of the stunning panoramas from picnic tables and a small stone amphitheater.
Historic Village: Beehive of Activity
From Mather Point I took the Rim Trail to historic Grand Canyon Village, a cluster of venerable buildings with lodging, restaurants, gift shops and visitor services not far from canyon overlooks. The El Tovar Hotel, constructed of native stone and pine, opened in 1905, catering to the wealthy with a music room, solarium, billiards hall, barber shop and roof gardens. Today its dining room is the park’s most elegant venue for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Exhibits in the History Room at Bright Angel Lodge showcase the Fred Harvey restaurants that served rail travelers throughout the Southwest.
Bright Angel Lodge has several eateries, including Fred Harvey Burger, a family-friendly diner named after the company that built a famous string of restaurants along the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe and other railroad lines. Exhibits in the rustic lodge’s History Room shed light on the Fred Harvey Company, whose Harvey Houses were known for the gracious service provided by young women in long black-and-white dresses who underwent extensive training and were held to strict company rules. Artifacts include such an outfit and a poster for The Harvey Girls, a 1946 movie starring Judy Garland
Built in 1935, Bright Angel Lodge was designed by Mary Colter, the architect responsible for several buildings in the park. Clinging precariously to the canyon’s edge, nearby Lookout Studio, a little stacked-stone house designed by Colter in 1914, offers spectacular views from its porches and has a gift shop.
The 1905 Hopi House, another Colter project in the village, is a pueblo-style building of adobe and sandstone where Hopi artisans once lived and worked. Today it is curio shop stocked with blankets, pottery, jewelry and other Native American-made crafts, most of it quite expensive. Verkamp’s Visitor Center, opened in 1906 as a souvenir shop, has exhibits on the area’s pioneer past and park’s early days. I found all this human history in the village almost as captivating as the surrounding natural splendor
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The Canyon Rim Trail offers dramatic photo backdrops.
The Rim Trail Spotlights Mother Nature’s Awesome Artistry
After a quick lunch at Bright Angel Grab & Go, I spent a leisurely afternoon walking through the pinyon-juniper woodlands on the Rim Trail, which offers some of the park’s best views. Parts of the path are paved and wheelchair-accessible. I marveled that in so many places there’s a straight drop-off—with no fencing or guardrail—only two or three feet from the trail. Some people posing for pictures got awfully close to the edge, and that made me nervous.
For the ambitious hiker in good shape and with time to explore, several trails lead down into the canyon, but it’s an arduous trek back up and summer temperatures can reach 120 degrees. Rescues are commonplace occurrences every day in the summer.
Signposts with descriptions of the park’s history, geology, and flora and fauna are interspersed along the Rim Trail. The “Canyon on Canvas” sign at Moran Point tells how American artist Thomas Moran (1837-1926) brought the Grand Canyon and other Western wilderness lands to the nation’s attention with his colorful paintings, helping inspire tourism and push Congress to establish national parks.
At one point I saw a group of bighorn sheep, and twice I spied elk grazing in the rocky scrub not far from the trail.
A free shuttle bus from Grand Canyon Village takes sightseers to various viewpoints along the rim. To avoid crowds closer to the village, I took the Hermit Road bus west for eight miles to Hermits Rest, a log-and-stone cabin at Rim Trail’s end, then hiked back east, stopping at other viewpoints before hopping on at Hopi Point, a promontory that extends out more than any other. I got to Hopi Point—touted as the best place for viewing sunsets—just in time to see the sun lower at 5:34 p.m. (Hermits Rest, a Mary Colter design with giant alcove fireplace, was built in 1914 as a rest stop for carriage passengers and now is a gift shop/snack bar.)
Desert View Watchtower
A Stately Landmark Near the Park’s East Entrance
The next day I entered the park again to see Desert View Watchtower. Modeled after the architecture of the Southwest’s ancient Puebloan people, the park’s tallest structure, another Mary Colter work, was built in 1932 by Fred Harvey and the Santa Fe Railway. Timed-entry tickets allow access to the rooftop observatory, reached by four flights of stairs. Native American vendors sell artwork and crafts inside and outside the rock tower, which resembles prehistoric towers that once dotted Southwestern landscapes.
Located 23 miles from Grand Canyon Village and close to the park’s eastern entrance, Desert View is operated by the non-profit Grand Canyon Conservancy. It is one of the park’s most photographed sites.
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Story and photos by Randy Mink, Senior Editor
