I’m standing at the edge of eternity.
Beneath my feet lie almost 2 billion years of terrestrial history, its pages laid open by Earth’s most persistent force, water.
Behind me stands 120 years of human construction, monuments to our ever-ready desire to witness and make sense of land, space, and time. Surrounding me are the homelands of intrepid peoples who have thrived in this landscape for centuries.
There’s nothing like the Grand Canyon.
Show a picture to anyone on Earth and most will recognize it. On occasion, it’s been deemed the most-photographed natural site. Some rate it the best-known geographic feature on our planet.
But most wonderful of all is this: It’s easy to see.
And, borrowing that old ad slogan, darn well worth it.
The world’s premier crack in the ground is supreme in every way. Most of its “walls” are actually slopes, but plenty steep enough to summon up the term “vertical drop,” which surpasses 6,000 feet. At 277 miles long, it’s the second-longest canyon on Earth. Its 1,904 square miles are bigger than Luxembourg. Enough water rushes through every year, 4 trillion gallons, to fill America’s largest reservoir in just two years. The overall geographic spectacle is peerless on this planet. To borrow Douglas Adams’s famous quote about space, “You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is.”
The Grand Canyon is America’s third most-visited national park—nearly 5 million people come here every year, outstripped by Great Smoky only because it’s the one major park near 100 million people; and by Zion because that’s closer to an interstate highway.
Those are two fine places, but the Grand Canyon surpasses all.
Standing at the edge of eternity, I sip my morning coffee and try to grasp the meaning of this matchless view. Space and time, compressed and expanded, 6,000 feet almost straight down. What a fascinating world we small specks inhabit!
The Secret to Visiting Is … There Is No Secret
Two major international airports lie within a half-day drive of the park. Easy roads lead here, but they aren’t as clogged by traffic as the roads near Yellowstone and Yosemite. Awesome historic lodging bestrides both rims of the park.The South Rim, the park’s most developed and most-visited location, is slightly more than a four-hour drive from both the Las Vegas and Phoenix airports. Both metro areas have numerous domestic and international flights; both airports are excellent terminals by international standards; both have acres of rental cars on hand; both offer an infinity of lodging options; both offer abundant competitive prices except during peak periods, such as the New Year holiday in Vegas.
That’s not a good time to visit the Grand Canyon, anyway. It’s best to go in April or May, or September/October. July is prime for North Rim stays. Once you arrive at the South Rim, all you need to do is look, really. High-level travel philosophers may sneer at this prescription, but the Grand Canyon makes few demands on thoughtful travelers other than good behavior (see below) and rapt appreciation of the geographic spectacle and the symphony it roars about the wonders of our world.
Find a parking spot. Hop on the Grand Canyon Village shuttle bus. Visit a few overlooks. Spend the night in one of the many historic hotels. Walk the pathways along the rim. Admire the matchless view and spy the glint of the Colorado River far, far below.
Drive out along the scenic road that leads east from Grand Canyon Village, and head back to daily life or the rest of your vacation. There: You did it! You'll remember your visit the rest of your life.
River Deep, Mountain High
According to the National Park Service, it’s 6,093 feet from the North Rim’s highest spot at Point Imperial to the Colorado River below. Along the way down, eight major rock strata are exposed, representing 1.8 billion years of geology—and that means the rock at the very bottom is among the oldest visible in North America. It’s the awesomely titled Vishnu Basement Rock, named for the bedrock Hindu god said to protect the universe.Few dispute that this is the best-known, most amazing of all canyons. But the deepest? Plumb the depths of that issue and fissures erupt.
Advocates for Hells Canyon, the boundary between Idaho and Oregon, roll their eyes and claim the Snake River’s handiwork encompasses 8,043 vertical feet—deepest canyon in North America, according to the National Park Service. Don’t say that in California, where Kings Canyon is more than a mile deep and sports 14,000-foot peaks nearby, yielding a theoretical total vertical relief near 10,000 feet. And there are far, far deeper canyons elsewhere—one in Tibet, the Yarlung Tsangpo, approaches 20,000 feet. Yikes! If you’re wondering, it’s also called “Grand.”
There are other “Grand” canyons” also. The Pennsylvania Grand Canyon stretches 45 miles and is almost 1,500 feet deep. Georgia’s “Little Grand Canyon” is just 150 feet deep, but beloved of Peach State natives. Kaua'i’s Waimea Canyon is called the “Grand Canyon of the Pacific.” It bears many visual similarities to its mainland namesake—except for the fact that, however attractive, it’s a mere teacup compared to its big cousin.
You see the issue? I have. I’ve been to all these places, save Tibet, and Arizona’s Grand Canyon outstrips them all in every way, and is the universal standard of comparison.
What Goes Down Must Come Up
Aside from the Appalachian and Pacific Crest trails, the most famous footpath in the United States may be the Grand Canyon’s Bright Angel Trail, which descends 4,380 feet from the South Rim to the canyon bottom over its 9.9-mile course. It winds up at the famous Phantom Ranch, and there are campgrounds, water stations, rest houses, and other “amenities” along the way.It’s not for amateurs. I cannot stress that enough. It’s not even for average Americans. It’s an arduous two-day-minimum trek that challenges every outdoor skill and fitness parameter imaginable. Other park trails that descend into the canyon are even more difficult—narrower, rockier, less traveled.
I’m an experienced wilderness hiker who has trekked all over Western North America. Nothing calls me to even consider thinking about possibly ever potentially attempting to try this.
So what’s the average American on a low-key visit to do? Simple: Head down the Bright Angel Trail just a little way—a quarter-mile, say—at about 10 a.m. By then the round-trip trekkers have long passed downward; the half-dead returnees aren’t up this high yet; and you can have a patch of trail all to yourself a few hundred feet below the rim.
The impression you gain when you’re below the rim is cosmically different from above it. No crowds of gawkers. No noise from cars. No diesel tour-bus exhaust. Scan the air for condors, one of the world’s most awesome beings.
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
If it sounds like I’m encouraging drive-by visits; I’m not. Sure, you can make it an overnight trip from Vegas or Phoenix. You can even hop in a helicopter or sightseeing plane and make it a half-day excursion, for a mere $200 to $800. Most of those tours reach the so-called “West Rim,” not the central part of the national park.- Day 1: Depart Vegas and drive 4.5 hours to the South Rim’s Grand Canyon Village. Overnight at one of the half dozen historic hotels perched along the rim, admire the vistas, and have dinner.
- Day 2: Head east from the village along Desert View Drive, to U.S. Route 89, turn north, cross the Colorado River at Marble Canyon on 89A, head west past the Vermilion Cliffs to the incomparably pretty Kaibab Plateau, and turn south to the North Rim.
- Day 3: Spend a day hiking around the North Rim and enjoying the historic lodge, whose dining room has an incomparable view and whose décor includes priceless massive Navajo rugs.
- Day 4: After breakfast, the 5-hour drive back to Las Vegas takes you past southern Utah canyonlands, through the retirement mecca of St. George, finishing a complete circle around the canyon.
Skywalking in Thin air Over the West Rim
The Grand Canyon West Skywalk is a tourist attraction commissioned by, operated by, and supporting the Hualapai Tribe, whose people lived here for centuries but enjoyed little benefit from the canyon’s global fame until this overlook opened in 2007. It’s a cantilevered platform that juts out 70 feet beyond a sheer cliff with a vertical drop of more than 500 feet directly beneath the walkway … which has a clear glass floor. It’s earthquake-proof, can hold 100 pounds per square foot, and is anchored in four large concrete footings that are in turn anchored to the clifftop bedrock. And—Frankly, it’s weird.
I have a moderate fear of exposure but was able to navigate all the way out and back with little agitation. Yes, I looked straight down, but I didn’t lean out over the 5-foot-7-inch glass wall. I did see a couple visitors paralyzed by anxiety crawling back to the overlook entry, eyes closed, loved ones guiding them.
The West Rim isn’t in the national park, and the Skywalk is built over a side canyon, not the Grand Canyon proper. Even so, it’s an easy day trip from Vegas and, in good years, draws more than 1 million visitors. The views are great but not revelatory. Admission runs around $70, and the cause is just. Like every indigenous nation in the Lower 48, the Hualapai were nearly wiped out by the U.S. Army and disease.
For comparison, the Skywalk makes infinitely more sense than roping yourself to a thick cable and traipsing around on the open rim of Toronto’s 1,168-foot CN Tower. Edgewalk is $199, almost enough for three people to help out the Hualapai.
A super bonus of the trip to the Skywalk is that, about 10 miles south of the complex, the road passes one of the most majestic, healthy Joshua tree forests in the United States, with some specimens soaring near 30 feet.
Gravity Wins
Speaking of heights: People being as they are, it only takes me five minutes after leaving my hotel one morning to chance upon a visitor illustrating why homo sapiens is a self-limiting form of life. He’s climbed over a guard wall at the canyon’s South Rim and is clinging perilously to a scrubby pine growing horizontally above a precipitous drop while his girlfriend documents the moment. With a cell phone, of course. No glass floor underneath. No nothing. I cannot help but ask:“You realize how dangerous that is?”
He shrugs, which is quite an accomplishment under the circumstances.
“No guts, no glory,” he declares.
The glory is short-lived as a park ranger bustles over to put the kibosh on his foolishness, after which I ask her: “This is your job, basically?” She adopts the pleasant, weary face of a junior high teacher: “Pretty much, yes.”
Need I say, do not do this? Of the dozen or so visitors who bite the dust at GCNP every year, two to four do so by falling, and the numerical trend isn’t downward, even if the mishaps are. Please bear in mind essayist Ellen Goodman’s pithy remark: “Gravity wins.”
It’s the implacable force that carved this geological monument. It’s why the canyon, and the park, are here and will be long after humanity travels on to whatever lies ahead.
Oh Lord, my God, when I, in awesome wonder, Consider all the worlds Thy hands have made; I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder, Thy power throughout the universe displayed.Call it grand, great, glorious. … Pick any deity you wish and give thanks. For the chance just to be here. In Teddy Roosevelt’s benediction: “beyond comparison—beyond description; absolutely unparalleled throughout the wide world.”
Lifelong journalist and editor Eric Lucas lives on a small farm on an island north of Seattle, where he grows organic hay, garlic, apples, corn and beans.
