Day 3-4: Grand Canyon National Park

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We didn't hit the road in Las Vegas until about 11:30am. The car rental process was slow, and we had to stop at Walmart to buy a cooler and get groceries for the upcoming week. Taking the national park circuit means needing to bring lots of your own food! Once we were driving, we hit traffic around Lake Mead/Hoover Dam, and it took us almost 6 hours to reach GCNP...right as the sun had set!

Fortunately, we had prepared for such an event and had booked a room in the Bright Angel lodge inside the park. I loved our adorable old-timey cabin-like room, and we got some much needed sleep after our hotel stay in Vegas! I would definitely recommend staying in the park if you can.

Also, we bought our "America the Beautiful" national parks pass at the gate. It costs $80 and lasts for one year and grants access to all federally owned parks. For example, national parks and monuments, but not state parks or land owned by Native Americans.

We woke up at 6 so that we could drive out to Hermit's Rest to see the sunrise. We heard conflicting opinions about where the best sunrise on the South Rim was, but we hedged our bets on the most western part of the rim. Many parts of GCNP do not operate during the winter months, including the North Rim and several of the bus shuttles in the South Rim that carry tourists throughout the park in an effort to cut down on the amount of cars. One of the canceled routes is Hermit's Rest, so it was only accessible by car. We wanted to get there long before the other tourists would, and we made the right decision. At some of the lookouts, we were the only people, or 2 of 15, rather than 2 of 100-200 like at Mather's point (right by the visitor center).

In a way, it's hard to appreciate how grand the canyon really is. It sounds cheesy, but it's scale really just boggles the mind.  There were some park signs early on that remind you to pause and listen. Listen to the stillness, the emptiness,  the grand silence. As the signs point out, the increasing number of tourists increases noise contamination, so it's really important to think about what noise you add and to appreciate the quiet moments.



I tried to keep that in mind as we watched the colors on the canyon shift and change at various points for a couple hours, and then ate our breakfast of granola and yogurt on a bench by Hermit's Rest. The old structure, along with our lodge, was designed by a female architectural pioneer, Mary Jane Colter. Get it girl! Hermit's Rest was part of the first tourist sites, where people could have an adventure for $18, the equivalent of $300+ today. It was fun to see old photos and imagine what kinds of people would partake in such an adventure 100 years ago!



We raced back to our lodge to do check out at 11am and to meet up with my friend and former roommate in Bogota, Corrie Jones! When I told her our plan to go there, she asked to tag along since, as she rightly says, she has always wanted to see the park, but it's too majestic to do alone. I was so glad she could meet up with us!

Once we were a party of three, we did a short descent into the canyon on the Bright Angel trail. We didn't go far because whatever goes down must come up and we didn't want to exhaust ourselves! We gauged our descent on how out of breath people appeared on their way back up! It largely worked, but we had to take a few pauses as well since the elevation is around 7000 feet. We also enjoyed the Trail of Time, which was a walk that had examples of all the types of rocks from various periods of history. One of the most fascinating bits was the fact that one large step down the canyon represents 1 million years of rock formation. Incredible!




We passed a glorious sunset at Yaki Point, and the colors were breathtaking. We eked out every last second we could, and then finally went back to our cars to say goodbye to Corrie as she headed off to Santa Fe, and we to Flagstaff. Since we were out exploring from sun-up to sun-down, I do feel like I was able to fully aprpeciate the Grand Canyon in one day. However, I would love to return in another season and descend to the river for some hiking or rafting. The North Rim also remains to be explored!

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