On Friday we finally drove back toward the Grand Canyon now that the weather was better. We’d looked at the forest lands near the Grand Canyon and decided to camp on the South side off Long Jim Loop Road. It’s a short little forest road right in the town of Tusayan. Tusayan is just a few miles down the road from the entrance to the South Rim of Grand Canyon. It’s a newer town that seems to have sprung up to serve the tourist needs of the Canyon. Not so long ago, the nearest thing going was Williams, about an hour down the road, with its train that takes tourists up to the rim. So, Long Jim Loop Road might have once felt more like you were in the wilderness, but now feels like a conveniently located campsite just outside town. In fact, if needed, we could have caught a shuttle into the Grand Canyon right from the National Geographic center that was about a 5 minute stroll from our campsite. Still, the spots are nicely spread out, dispersed camping. We liked the idea of being as close to the Canyon as possible. There is, of course, camping inside the Canyon, but it was mostly booked and obviously more expensive and crowded than free, forest camping.
On Saturday, we again entered the park and drove to check out some of the more historic sights and decided what, if any hiking we wanted to do while there. We checked out some more the view points and visited the Tusayan Ruins which are the remnants of an Indian village there. We did a short hike near camp with Malachi the Wonder Beast and found a natural entrance to some sort of cave. Short of moving rocks around though you couldn’t really get inside it. While we investigated the cave Malachi the Wonder Beast gave up on us and returned to camp on his own. Old man doggos are sometimes short of patience.
Sunday, we did the Bright Angel Trail down to the 3 mile lookout point. A 6 mile hike doesn’t seem like much, but when the 2nd half is pretty much straight up, it’s more strenuous than you would think. The park keeps volunteer rangers at the different lookout points to forewarn tourists not in the know, that trying to descend all the way to the bottom and return in one day is not the best idea, unless you are training for an ultra-marathon or some such thing, or, at the very least, starting your hike in the wee morning hours. Bright Angel is on of the most traveled trails in the park so it was pretty crowded, esp. by the time we headed back up. The views were awesome of course. A the 3 mile lookout Zack Attack and I scrambled out to the farthest rocky nubbin we could reasonable sit on and ate our lunch while we took in the vast scope of the the canyon down below. After we wandered the Village for a bit and checked out the Hopi House, another iconic building designed by Ms. Colter in the early days of the park.
On Monday we decided to hike down the slightly less traveled, South Kaibab trail. The volunteer ranger we chatted to on the Bright Angel Trail the day before said it had some of his favorite views. We got to see a group of people coming back up from Phantom Ranch on a mule pack. Of course, I took picture of some mules. They seemed very sweet. We had decided not to go all the way to the bottom this trip, but one day i’d like to see it. There is camping at the bottom of the Canyon, but Phantom Ranch is another one of the Grand Canyon’s historic buildings. After we hiked we took the shuttle out to a few more view points that can only be accessed via shuttle (or special permit). The very end of the line is Hermit’s Rest featuring another Colter designed building. The rock structure that houses a gift shop fits in with the landscape just as it should and you can’t imagine it ever having not been there. It truly resembles the dwelling of some long ago hermit who was perhaps a little better at rock work than most hermits. It used to be a stage stop for a tourist stage line that ran out that way.
Tuesday, we started early as we had decided to do a slightly more ambitious hike – the Grandview trail down to the Horseshoe Mesa. The Grandview trail is less maintained than either Bright Angel or South Kaibab and also steeper. There used to be a hotel at the top maintained by a gentleman that had owned a mine at the bottom. Before the trail came to the Grand Canyon, his hotel was a popular as any of the others, but the proximity of the train stop to the other hotels nearer the current Grand Canyon Village contributed to the rather shorter life span of the Grandview Hotel. Starting the hike as early as we did and the twisty turns of the early part of the trail led to some fabulous reveals of part of the Canyon we had not seen yet. We met a man and his daughter coming up and the let us know about a cave near the Horseshoe Mesa. We searched and searched for that cave as it was getting hotter, but ultimately had to give up as we needed to start heading back up. I was feeling pretty miffed about the elusive cave until Zack Attack fed me a sandwich and then I felt slightly better about my life. We did get to see the mine at the bottom, which is marked with radiation signs by the way, in order to deter too many people from visiting. All in all, we ended up hiking about 12 miles. We celebrated when we got back by taking the Wonder Beast with us to the nearby pizza joint for beer and pizza. An inquisitive raven wanted to join in our feast, but we declined his company. We thought about doing the 4th big hike in the Canyon the next day – the one from Hermits Rest – but decided it was best to head back towards Flagstaff where we would be attending the Overland Expo. Hermits Rest will have to wait for another visit.
