Grand Canyon National Park
Grand Canyon, Arizona
Tuesday, June 12, 2018
Clear, 95°
“The wonders of the Grand Canyon cannot be adequately represented in symbols of speech, nor by speech itself. The resources of the graphic art are taxed beyond their powers in attempting to portray its features. Language and illustration combined must fail.” - John Wesley Powell
After the little hike at Horseshoe Bend it was only a couple hours’ drive to The Grand Canyon. The Grand Canyon is a steep-sided canyon carved by the Colorado River in Arizona. Words like Grand, Massive, Oh Wow, and Impressive cannot truly describe The Grand Canyon. Its massive size overwhelms the senses. It is 277 miles long, up to 18 miles wide and attains a depth of over a mile (6,093 feet).
Grand Canyon Sign
The canyon and adjacent rim are contained within Grand Canyon National Park, the Kaibab National Forest, Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument, the Hualapai Indian Reservation, the Havasupai Indian Reservation and the Navajo Nation. President Theodore Roosevelt was a major proponent of preservation of the Grand Canyon area, and visited it on numerous occasions to hunt and enjoy the scenery.
Distant Canyons
Nearly two billion years of Earth's geological history have been exposed as the Colorado River and its tributaries cut their channels through layer after layer of rock while the Colorado Plateau was uplifted. While some aspects about the history of incision of the canyon are debated by geologists, several recent studies support the hypothesis that the Colorado River established its course through the area about 5 to 6 million years ago (*Wikipedia)
Grand Canyon
On the South Rim side of the Park, there is no need to drive around in traffic. Park your car or RV and ride the free shuttle buses around the village and out to scenic overlooks. The drivers are funny and very helpful getting you to where you want to visit and offer great hints to get more out of your visit. I am not sure what the North Rim has for services but know it is higher in elevation and more remote.
Grand Canyon toward East
Coming in from Page, Arizona through the east gate, the first stop on the eastern end of the South Rim is the Desert View Watchtower, built in 1932. It is one of Mary Colter's best-known works. It is 27 miles from Grand Canyon Village; the tower stands 70 feet tall.
Desert View Watchtower
The top of the tower is 7,522 feet above sea level, the highest point on the South Rim. It offers one of the few full views of the bottom of the canyon and the Colorado River.
Colorado River Below
It was designed to mimic Anasazi watch towers, though, with four levels; it is significantly taller than historical towers.
Desert View Watchtower interior
Mary Colter (April 4, 1869 – January 8, 1958) was an American architect and designer. She was one of the very few female American architects in her day. She was the designer of many landmark buildings and spaces for the Fred Harvey Company and the Santa Fe Railroad, notably in Grand Canyon National Park. Her work had enormous influence as she helped to create a style, blending Spanish Colonial Revival and Mission Revival architecture with Native American motifs and Rustic elements; that became popular throughout the Southwest. (*Wikipedia)
Plaque on top of Tower
Desert View Watchtower gives you another “Oh Wow” moment with the full view of the Canyon below. As you look out for miles on end, the Canyon is before you to the west and the high plains of the Colorado Plateau are toward the east. The vibrant colors of the Canyon, even in mid-day, gives a depth and saturation only dimmed by the slight smoke of the forest fires in Colorado several hundred miles away.
Colorado Plateau
There were a couple of Navajo vendors inside the Tower who were giving cultural information while making their crafts. They were doing wood and stone carvings with several work stations set up for visitors to watch them work. Both were very informative and answered questions while they worked.
Grand Canyon - Another Oh Wow Moment
Driving the twenty five miles along the South Rim to the Grand Canyon Village, there are multiple places (overlooks) to stop for views and photo opportunities of the Canyon below. At each pull out, several vehicles made a daisy chain caravan stopping for photos. It was slightly funny to watch everyone get out, look for a couple minutes, snap a few pictures and head out to the next one. This went on for the whole twenty five miles to the Village.
North Rim Horizon
Approaching the Village, it suddenly got really crowded as the Parks Service had quite a bit of road construction going on. Several roads were being repaved so crews were directing traffic into single lane passes as the crews stripped the old pavement and filled in so the new surface could be poured and smoothed out. Like most Government projects there were quite a few workers with many standing around, several operating heavy equipment, and several supervisors talking to each other. It will probably be a long summer of work . . . maybe with the high temperatures and tourists all over the place it would be a great idea to work night shifts. More work could be done with less people driving by, there would be cooler temperatures to work in, and you would be a little more productive in the process by getting more miles of pavement put down. Oh well, that would be too easy, just an observation from years of construction projects. (Rant over)
Getting to the Village Campground, finding a place to park, and waiting in line to talk with the Camp Registration office, it was slowly learned that I had not booked at that campsite. With a little digging in the Parks computer system and me looking at emails from March it was discovered that when looking to book, everything was full and I had booked just off site at a campground with a similar name. It was about this time that I really felt like an idiot but the lady assured me that it happens almost every day.
It was time to get back in the RV, turn around, hit traffic again and find the way to the Park entrance and drive a mile down the road to the new campground. This one was expecting me so check-in went smoothly and it was time to set up for another night in paradise.
As I was setting up the RV for the night I could hear that familiar “Whup, whup” sound of helicopters flying about. The campsite was along the return path of flight seeing helicopters on their way back to the airport about a half mile away. They must be doing a great business as there were choppers returning to the airport in sets of six or eight returning about the same time with the process repeating about every twenty minutes or so all afternoon. The campground had two elk that grazed across from the RV and five to ten more were further back in the campground. I believe they live there and stay in the area as several people said they were there every morning and afternoon eating till the sun went down.
It was about six hundred feet to walk to the shuttle bus stop outside the campgrounds so it was easy to make our way back to the park to view the sunset. The bus driver, Trey, was entertaining and talked about the smoke in the Canyons today. He said he had property in Durango, Colorado and knew all about that fire. It was started by the narrow gauge railroad that operates in the area and that the fire was still not close to being contained. He chatted with an Asian family who was also on the bus. He gave specific directions once getting off the bus on the fastest way to get to the Canyon rim for the best photo shots in the area.
The sun was just setting, giving an orange glow to the western horizon. The walls of the Canyon to the east were highlighted by the Alpenglow of the sun and gave nice details between light and shadow on the cliff face.
Afternoon Sun
There were several overlooks in this area around the Village and all were full of people snapping photos of every cliff and overlook.
Afternoon Vistas
At one glance I could see about forty phone screens illuminated, held high taking photos or selfies on one ledge overlook.
Sunset 1
It was kind of humorous seeing everyone running around trying the get that great shot of the sunset or the Canyon walls all aglow. You could hear the quiet voices of many different languages talking, a true international gathering of people celebrating the same thing, a beautiful sunset.
Sunset 2
Everyone stopped in awe of another day’s passing into night, shadows, and darkness.
Sunset 3
The bus driver also told us about the Grand Canyon Star Party that is held each year in June. Due to its dark skies and clean air, Grand Canyon offers one of the best night sky observing sites in the United States.
Evening Star
Grand Canyon Star Party
For eight days in June, park visitors explore the wonders of the night sky on Grand Canyon National Park's South Rim with the Tucson Amateur Astronomy Association and with the Saguaro Astronomy Club of Phoenix on the North Rim. Amateur astronomers from across the country volunteer their expertise and offer free nightly astronomy programs and telescope viewing.
Through the telescopes you might view an assortment of planets, double stars, star clusters, nebulae and distant galaxies by night, and perhaps the Sun or Venus by day. At the 2018 Star Party, Jupiter and Saturn will be evening highlights, but you might find an astronomer pointing a telescope at Venus in the early evening. Mars will rise just after 11 pm for those staying late in to the evening. (NPS information)
There were between fifty and seventy-five telescopes set up in the rear parking lot of the Village Visitors Center for the public to view the heavens once darkness set in. As the sun’s glow on the horizon was quickly diminishing the planets and stars were appearing across the night sky. Most telescopes were set up to view Venus and Jupiter as those were visible as soon as darkness set in. It was great seeing Jupiter and four of its moons so clearly through several telescopes.
We waited for this one man to set up his eight or nine foot tall telescope so we could view whatever he was going to point too. It was funny because he had trouble locating the North Star so he could calibrate his telescope but I and another by-stander showed him where it was. He spent about twenty minutes zeroing in his instrument before he was ready to view the stars. When he was finally locked on to his target it was a star nebulae cluster. It was beautiful, having the appearance of something like the Milky Way. You had to climb up on a ladder to get a view through the lens of his telescope.
It was a beautiful high desert evening, cooling off nicely once the sun dropped below the horizon. It probably dropped 10 degrees in about thirty minutes or so. The bus driver reminded everyone that the last shuttle from the Visitors Center left at 9:30 so stargazing had to be put on hold but it was hard to leave then as the stars were just beginning to pop out all over the heavens.
Walking across the parking lot where all the telescopes were set up, looking west there was a sudden burst of exhilaration from the crowd as a shooting star appeared to the right and fell in a beautiful greenish arc across the sky to the left. It was if the astronomers had ordered this beautiful light show. The crowd continued in an excited state for several minutes hoping another one would fall.
Taking the shuttle bus back, we had the same driver, Trey. Two young men (boys really) about twenty years old started to get onto the bus toting their bicycles. Trey said to them loud enough for anyone on the bus to hear, “Does it say anywhere that bicycles are allowed “In” the bus?” They stepped back off and started to go to the rear of the bus when he called out again to them, “I’ll give you a hint, not that way guys!” They stopped, turned around and went to front of the bus where a large bike rack was attached to the bumper. The boys, looked at it, looked at each other puzzled wondering how to attach their bicycles. Trey got off the bus and happily showed them how to operate the simple hold downs for quick loading and unloading of the bikes.
As he spoke about bicycles being allowed “In” the bus, this Hindu family just cracked up and was excitedly talking back and forth while the bicycles were loaded on board. As the two young men entered the bus, the family continued talking excitedly; they seemed amused that the boys were finally able to get on. Their son who was about nine or ten started asking Trey all kinds of questions about the Park, the Canyon, many types of animals and more. Trey told the mom and dad they needed to get this young boy some books as he “had wheels and was going somewhere with his life!” He asked the boy why he knew so much about the Grand Canyon and the area. The little boy answered, “I Googled it!”
A little comedy, beautiful sunset, the Heavens opening up with stars, and seeing a meteor fall close by, made for a very memorable day Traveling Life’s Highways.