The Grand Canyon National Park is GRAND!!
About 10 minutes from the south entrance, there was a sign saying we should expect a 1-2 hour wait at the entrance. It must have been a sign they leave up all the time (flashing lights sign) because we waited 5 minutes. And they also said be there early because the parking lots filled up and you would have to park down the hill and take a shuttle to the park. Not, we easily found a space in the number 1 parking lot.
The south rim is 6,800 feet and the north rim is 7,800 feet. That made for slow walking for out of shape old people – no power walking. We walked all around the Visitor’s Center and made our plan. We walked some of he Rim Trail first to get our first view of the canyon. WOW!!!!!! AMAZING!!!!!!!! Awesome!!!! Especially when you think about how long it took to get to the point it is. The forces of nature and the time to carve out the Grand Canyon is hard to fathom. The top is 5,000 feet down to the river. It is 10-16 miles across – which meant lots of it was hazy across from one side to the other even though it was a clear day just because of the distance. It is 277 miles long. The youngest rock layer is 270 million years ago (before the dinosaurs) and is the rim. The oldest rocks are more than 3,000 feet beneath the rim and were formed between 1,840 and 1,680 million years ago. Excavation of the canyon however, occurred within the last 6 million years or so. The Colorado river is visible from only a few spots at the rim. The river looks small but it is about 300 feet wide and has some fierce rapids. The river drops more than 12,000 feet. The canyon is 2,600 square miles so slightly larger than Delaware.
We heard a polyglot of languages and oddly enough, not much English. It was between 78 and 82 degrees while we were there with puffy white clouds and some overcast cover. We walked first to Mather Point, a scenic viewpoint along South Rim, popular for its canyon vistas We did some more walking then went to the car to explore that way. Some very fat squirrels there!
We expected crowds the whole time but there wasn’t. Sometimes we were only two of maybe 5-6 people at the overlooks. Not crowded at all!! We drove the Desert View Drive to see all the overlooks. We thought about riding the free shuttles around but decided to explore on our own. We stopped at all the overlooks. The Lipan Point overlook was interesting, You could see the Hanson Rapids, part of the Colorado River from there and you had dramatic, panoramic views of the Grand Canyon & Colorado River We also ran into a couple and their 2 kids from Paris. At the Navajo Point, you could see where the 2 airlines had collided and crashed in 1956. At Desert View point, (same but called different things by different sources) a National Historic Landmark plaque and stone memorial commemorating the 1956 Grand Canyon TWA-United Airlines Aviation Accident Site,a horrific airline collision over Grand Canyon that took place on June 30, 1956.
On that day, a Trans World Airlines (TWA) Super Constellation L-1049 and a United Airlines DC-7 collided in uncongested airspace 21,000 feet over the Grand Canyon, and killing all 128 people onboard the two flights. The tragedy spurred an unprecedented effort to modernize and increase safety in America’s postwar airways, culminating in the establishment of the modern Federal Aviation Administration.
The straight line distance to the opposite rim of the canyon is 18 miles; to the Colorado River, 4 miles. The river is about 300 feet wide as seen from Desert View.
We went to the Watch Tower. You can see the Painted Desert from that point.
We saw signs about the animals along the road – deer, moose and one time, cows. We drove through some of the Bad Lands after we we left the park. Stark.
We had to wear masks if we went inside anywhere on the Indian Reservation. I bought a necklace made by Navajos while driving through the reservation land.
We got to Page, AZ around 6 Pacific time. It’s hard to keep up with time zones the way we keep crossing them and the Indian Reservation is on Daylight savings when the rest of Arizona isn’t. Sometimes our watches and electronics keep up and sometimes they don’t. And sometimes some of them do and some don’t.