Important stop in this road trip: the Grand Canyon, Far West and great American landscape symbol! This destination has fascinated me for many years, probably because some of my cousins lived in Arizona when I was a kid and I get postcards and calendars from them… I thought at this time that I would never go there, it was so far away. And it finally became true. And guess what: it’s better than on the postcard. Surprising, unique, huge and vertiginous. We admired it though many points of view, throughout the day, until a magical sunset…
Music: Peter Von Poehl, Going Where The Tea Trees Are
From the North We were coming from Utah (up North Arizona), so we arrived on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. Perfect, we were told it was the less touristic and wilder area. We drove through pines forests and meadows, we almost felt like in a Nordic country. Nothing to compare with the South Rim and the arid plateaus, North Rim is higher and cooler. The mood is great on our car, we stopped in a essence station, we bought ponchos just in case… the sky was pretty threatening and we left the hotel with very optimistic clothes. We dreaded the upcoming hiking, we read and heard it was pretty hard… but well, this is the Grand Canyon…
The true postcard As in other parks, we first had to stop at the Visitor Center where I bought postcards for family and friends. We met rangers who as usual were wearing the funny boyscout-like outfits; we got some recommendations for the hiking, and maps. Outside, there were some gorgeous wooden lodges (try to figure out small cabins with big wood logs). Some of them even overlook the canyon.. We got closer to get the first view over the Grand Canyon… Stunning! Far above us, the South Rim and the large plateau…
First hike: Widforss Trail We started with a pretty easy flat walk, along 2 miles. We took the time and walked first in the forest, then closer to the canyon… The lanscape was incredibile but it felt like we were far away from the canyon. On the trail we ran into a deer which stayed still – like us – when it saw us. I wondered if I’d like to be in front of a mountain lion or a bear…
North Kaibab Trail: geology and sweating We were recommended to go down the canyon to really appreciate how huge it is. North Rim is pretty high (2512 m at this point), so the trail that goes down is very long, we’ll just do a small part of it. This trail is usually taken by mules (you can go down on their back) so we have to zigzag to avoid dung. We arrived quickly to the first stop, Coconino View. We clearly saw the different layers of the canyon, it was just awesome to see that a huge part of Earth history is in front of our eyes – the canyon is 2000 millions years old. At this time, the time split in half: Pierre and Léo had decided to come back and I let myself convinced by Manu to go further down… I didn’t really want to do it, but I could’t really refuse either because “we are here only once” and “I can’t let him hike alone” while a storm was threatening us.
Let’s go one step further, so to say… one geological step further. We saw colors of the rock changing, plants and weather as well. It was getting hot… We walked faster until the Supai Tunnel (2073 m), we saw a bridge down there, it was very tempting to keep going but well storm was coming, friends were waiting. We came back to the top: time for a Survivor-state-of-mind hike, it was hard. Very.
Sunset over the canyon: a wonderful show It was 7, we went on the car and stopped at some great viewpoints. We could see the Colorado River at the bottom of the canyon (by the way, that’s the official name of the canyon, Colorado Canyon) the water looked brownish from there… And then we walked along a nice trail, we arrived at the edge of a crest, sat down and waited for the sunset at the Cape Royale. The rock seemed to get on fire, colors were wonderful, and the silence intense.
On our way back, we stopped the car on a meadow and we waited for animals… in an absolute silent, mules deers and coyotes came close to us…
We thought that Grand Canyon would be another touristic destination. Nope. It’s one of my best memory of this trip. You can’t miss seeing the Grand Canyon! And now I’d like to go back…
