than waiting in line for a burger and tater tots.
Desert View Drive
While the vast majority of visitors to the Grand Canyon enter through the south entrance and head straight for crowded, congested Grand Canyon Village, you can have a much more enjoyable experience if you take the east entrance instead. From Flagstaff, take U.S. 89 north to Ariz. 64 in Cameron (be sure to stop at the Cameron Trading Post, p. 243) and then head west. Following this route, you’ll get great canyon views sooner—even before you enter the park, you can stop at viewpoints on the Navajo Reservation for vistas of the canyon of the Little Colorado River. At every stop you can also shop for Native American crafts and souvenirs at numerous vendors’ stalls.
Desert View Drive, the park’s only scenic road open to cars year-round, extends for 25 miles between Desert View, just inside the park’s east entrance, and Grand Canyon Village. Along Desert View Drive, you’ll find not only good viewpoints, but also several picnic areas. Much of this drive is through forests, and canyon views are limited; but where there are viewpoints, they are among the best and least crowded in the park.
Desert View is the first stop on this scenic drive, and with its historic watchtower, general store, snack bar, service station, information center, bookstore, and big parking lot, it is better designed for handling large numbers of tourists than Grand Canyon Village. There’s never a wait here, unlike at the south entrance to the park. From anywhere at Desert View, the scenery is breathtaking, but the very best perspective here is from atop the Desert View Watchtower. Although the watchtower looks as though it was built centuries ago, it actually dates from 1932, designed by Mary Elizabeth Jane Colter to resemble the prehistoric towers that dot the southwestern landscape. Built as an observation tower and tourist rest stop, the watchtower incorporates Native American designs. The curio shop on the ground floor is a replica of a kiva (sacred ceremonial chamber); the second floor features work by Hopi artist Fred Kabotie and carvings by another Hopi artist, Chester Dennis, with pictographs on the walls that incorporate traditional designs; and the upper two floors’ walls and ceiling feature images by artist Fred Geary, reproductions of petroglyphs from throughout the Southwest. From the roof—at 7,522 feet above sea level, it’s the highest point on the South Rim—you can see the Colorado River, the Painted Desert to the northeast, the San Francisco Peaks to the south, and Marble Canyon to the north. Several black-mirror “reflectoscopes” provide interesting darkened views of some of the most spectacular sections of the canyon.
Native American art decorates the interior of the Desert View Watchtower, designed by Mary Elizabeth Jane Colter.
A few minutes’ drive west, at Navajo Point, the Colorado River and Escalante Butte are both visible; there’s also a good view of the Desert View Watchtower. Lipan Point
The next stop along Desert View Drive is the small Tusayan Museum (daily 9am–5pm), dedicated to the Hopi tribe and the Ancestral Puebloan people who inhabited the region 800 years ago. Outside the museum, there are ruins of an Ancestral Puebloan village, and inside the museum, artfully displayed exhibits explain various aspects of life in the village. A short self-guided trail leads through the ruins. Free guided tours are available.
Next along the drive is Moran Point, where you can see a layer of red shale in the canyon walls and the ancient Vishnu Schist formation at the bottom. This point is named for 19th-century landscape painter Thomas Moran, known for his Grand Canyon works.
The next stop, Grandview Point, affords a view of Horseshoe Mesa, another interesting feature of the canyon landscape. In the early 1890s, the mesa was the site of the Last Chance Copper Mine; later that same decade, the Grandview Hotel was built here and served canyon visitors until it closed in 1908. The steep, unmaintained Grandview Trail, which leads down to Horseshoe Mesa, makes a good less-traveled alternative to the South Kaibab Trail, although it is considerably more challenging.
The last stop along Desert View Drive is Yaki Point. It’s not open to private vehicles—the park service would prefer you park your car in Grand Canyon Village and take the Kaibab Trail Route (Orange) shuttle bus from the Grand Canyon Visitor Center to Yaki Point. The reality is that people passing by in cars want to see what this viewpoint is all about, and now park their cars along the main road and walk up the Yaki Point access road. The spectacular view from here encompasses a wide section of the central canyon. The large, flat-topped butte to the northeast is Wotan’s Throne, one of the canyon’s most recognizable features. You’ll see a lot of hikers at Yaki Point, since it’s also the trail head for the South Kaibab Trail, the preferred downhill hiking route to Phantom Ranch. It’s a more scenic route than the Bright Angel Trail—if you’re planning a day hike into the canyon, this should be your number-one choice. Be sure to bring plenty of water.
Hiking the Grand Canyon
No visit to the canyon is complete without journeying below the rim on one of the park’s hiking trails. While the views don’t necessarily get any better than they are from the top, they do change considerably. Gazing up at all those thousands of feet of vertical rock walls provides a very different perspective from that atop the rim. Below the rim, you may also see fossils, old mines, petroglyphs, wildflowers, and wildlife. The one thing you won’t find on the park’s main hiking trails is solitude.
That said, there is no better way to see the canyon than on foot (my apologies to the mules). If you’re in good physical condition and have strong legs and knees, you can simply head down the Bright Angel or South Kaibab trail. Keep in mind, though, that these are the two busiest trails, with hundreds of hikers per day. If you want to see fewer other hikers and are in good shape, consider the Grandview Trail or the Hermit Trail instead. If you just want an easy, relatively level walk, take the Rim Trail/Greenway Trail.
| Hiking Precautions |
The Grand Canyon offers some of the most rugged and strenuous hiking in the United States; anyone attempting even a short walk should be well prepared. Each year, injuries and fatalities are suffered by day hikers who set out without sturdy footgear, or without food and adequate amounts of water. Even a 30-minute hike in summer can dehydrate you, and a long hike in the heat can require drinking more than a gallon of water.
If you go for a day hike in the summer, carry and drink at least 2 quarts of water and a couple quarts of Gatorade or other electrolyte-supplement drink. And do not even think about hiking from the rim to the Colorado River and back in the same day. Although a few very fit individuals have managed this grueling feat, there are also plenty who have tried and died. Finally, remember that mules have the right of way.
Day Hikes
Hikers tend to gravitate to loop trails, but here on the South Rim, there are no such trails—all hikes are out-and-back. The good news is that the vastly different scenery in every direction makes the route back look entirely different from the route out. The bad news is that most of these out-and-back trails are the reverse of what you usually find: Instead of starting out by toiling up a steep mountain, gravity assists you in hiking down into the canyon. There are few natural turnarounds, and it’s easy to hike farther than you realize, only to face an arduous slog coming back, when you’re
