Holy Crap! It’s The Grand Canyon
It's hard to know just what to expect when heading to a place like this. You've seen pictures of Grand Canyon, we all have. It's real big on the map. Will Rogers quipped that Carlsbad Caverns was like "the Grand Canyon with a roof on it," and those are incredible. Palo Duro canyon is the second largest canyon in the US, but it's a distant second - Grand Canyon is 5 times deeper. I think I can imagine that.
Well, however big we might have thought Grand Canyon was, it's so, so much bigger in reality. Truly, shockingly huge. Grand, even. Big, big biggy-big-big.
Shortly after we entered the park via the east entrance of the south rim, we turned a corner and Luke pointed out, "there it is." Kristin and I turned and started like we'd been stung. What! Holy crap is that huge!
It's a lot more like standing on a mountain peak than looking down into a valley. Grand Canyon is 5,000 feet deep, and you look down into it from 7,400 feet above sea level. You're basically standing on a mountainside looking down into a vertical canyon that stretches 1 mile down and 10 miles across. Oh, and there's a rim on the other side, at least as tall as this one. It's insane. We cannot process the scale of it, to the point where many of the viewpoints just look "flat", like staring into a miles-wide matte painting.
To get there, we came out from Cottonwood, climbing the I-17 pass at Flagstaff (slowly) in mild weather. From Flagstaff we headed NE to I-40, then down US-64 through Hopi lands to the park's east entrance. We wanted to be sure and get there early, as it turned out to be a free entry day, and when you're big you don't get much choice of spots when boondocking. Better to get there before it's crowded. This worked - crowds were light with no waiting at the gate, and we got to pick a good spot.
There's only one RV campground in the park that would fit us, but we couldn't get in as it's been booked up for months. What we found instead was in some ways better. Just off the southernmost curve of the south rim road there's a (very bumpy) forest road that crosses into Kaibab National Forest land which allows boondocking. So we get to dry camp in GC for free, right in the middle of the south rim. We can even use the water and dump stations at the main campgrounds as needed. Pretty swell!
Actually seeing the canyon is really very easy, all told. The park facilities are so built up, it reminds me of Frontierland. Like Yellowstone, this park is very old, and has been a tourist destination since before there were National Parks. It's had a lot of time to build up amenities. There's a great bus system, several lodges, stores and restaurants, a health clinic, a gas station, even a mule barn for the tours. Of course, there weren't any of those things between there and Flagstaff when the area started to develop, so they had to be fairly self-sufficient if people were to camp in the park itself.
We got to check many of the must-do boxes while here. Saw nearly every viewpoint between Hermit's Rest and Desert View at some point. We watched a sunset over a picnic dinner from Lipan Point, toured many of the buildings (except the Desert View tower and Tusayan which were closed for COVID), and hiked a little (though less than I'd like) of the Bright Angel trail. Our excellent camp spot offered a rare level of access to the park, meaning short trips after work or midday offered some top-shelf destinations. We also got to camp in pine forest, a lovely reprieve from the barren desert so much of the Southwest offers. To these Oregonians it felt more like home, at least until we went out to the park proper and it felt like NPS Disneyland.
Not visible: the nose of the trailer about 0.5 inches above the truck bed rails.
At the end of our stay we had a close call getting out of the site as we bottomed out our jacks, destroyed several wood blocks trying to get the tires on the road, and earned several branch stripes. Thankfully nothing on the rig was damaged, but mostly due to luck. Boondocking with this rig is so comfortable once you're there, but moving it is No Joke.
Overall, this was a very special stay - so much lined up. We're here at the right time of year, in an excellent site, with good equipment and in good health. We stay at a lot of places where only some of these are true (which is still plenty for a good time) but when it all comes together it is truly great.
Onward!
