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Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona
All along the watchtower, princes kept the view
Part of the top tier of US National parks and arguably the most famous canyon in the western world, the Grand Canyon is more than just that big hole you can see looking out the window from a JetBlue JFK to Burbank flight. There are overlooks, trails, roads, forests, historic buildings, hotels, restaurants, undersized parking areas, shuttle buses, traffic and a hell of a lot of other people who (just like you) came all that way past the overlooks, trails, roads, forests, historic buildings, hotels, restaurants, undersized parking areas, shuttle buses, traffic and a hell of a lot of other people just to see the most famous canyon in the western world.
This is my second visit to the park but my first time to the far more popular South Rim. Years and years ago I was lucky enough to spend a few nights at the North Rim, the far less developed area of the park that sits at least a thousand feet higher than the South Rim. What those extra thousand feet get you is a commanding view that stretches over the canyon and (literally) all the way to Flagstaff, but in return you give up good views of the canyon itself. From the North Rim you're always looking down and over the canyon, but from the lower (and infinitely more popular) South Rim you're able to look across and into the canyon, a chance to feel its size and presence in a way that people in the North Rim can only dream about.
They don't call it the Grand Canyon for nothing. The canyon is wide (about 10 miles), long (over 250 miles), deep (about a mile all the way down to the river) and old (about 17 million years old, depending on which geologist you listen to). And while the Grand Canyon is unquestionably the result of millions years of a raging Colorado River coupled with the rise of the Colorado Plateau, there is a group of creationists who think quite different. To them the world started in 4004 BCE as opposed to the more accepted view of, like, 4,500,000,000 BCE. These people have a series of scary internet sites that claim that the canyon was created about 3000 BCE during Noah's flood and that I'm going to hell for thinking any different, all or some of which I guess could somehow be true in some alternate universe despite all of the overwhelming evidence, reason and logic against such madness.
Another overlook, another slide, another spectacular canyon view, all of which is overwhelming and sadly a bit numbing at times. At every turn off every trail, at every overlook and every drive there is another unending view just as spectacular as the one you just saw. After a while you start to feel that such spectacular views are commonplace. Hopi Point, Yavapai Point, Grandview Point, Lipan Point, Moran Point, there are so many views of (basically) the same thing that you soon need to almost force yourself to walk or drive to the next one, to see that one spectacular angle that might, just might still be able to distinguish itself from all those other spectacular views from all those other points all over the canyon.
Not all the sights of the South Rim are off the Rim Trail. You'll need to get into your car and drive (about a half hour each way) if you want to see Desert View and its locally famous watchtower. Once you get there you'll notice the canyon looks a little different- still impassable, still grand, but it all seems as if it is somehow less foreboding as it was along the Rim Trail. Maybe its the fact that you can see the river a little better (its barely visible in other sections of the park) or maybe its just all that canyon fatigue settling in, it's hard to tell.
As for the watchtower, it provides a slightly higher view of everything you can see if you choose not to climb all those steps and just go to the lookout near the gift shop. I guess that in the larger scheme of things that an extra few flights of stairs really doesn't do all that much to change the grand scale of an already Grand Canyon.
From the very well designed visitors center I walked along the Rim Trail as far as I was allowed until construction past Hopi Point forced me to turn back. The rim trail was well marked, generally flat (although it rose and dropped with the rim at times), often paved and had a combination of spectacular views and short, spur trails to even more spectacular views. The only downside was the summer and the effects of the summer sun. Walking a reasonably easy trail for four or five miles in the hot, hot heat was fine, but what it did do is discourage me from braving any of the below the rim trails, the trails with real elevation changes and the ones (that the signs say) kill people every year. As I passed by, my head said to skip them but my heart said screw all that and just give it a try. Eventually reaching a compromise, I decided, no, vowed to come back to the Grand Canyon, maybe next fall or next spring (or the year or the year or the year after that) to try the trails, specifically the Bright Angel Trail to (at least) Indian Garden or Plateau Point or maybe even all the way to the river and an overnight stay at Phantom Ranch (if I can get reservations). I'll spend a few days at the canyon's rim, maybe a few more days checking out some more trails down at Sedona, only a few hours drive on the way back to Phoenix. So literally as I was walking the Rim Trail I stopped thinking about the half day I still had left in the summer heat of the canyon but instead turned to planning some imaginary future return trip to the very place I was. Maybe its time for me to seek some professional help about this.
That hot summer sun also took its toll on Lake Mead, seen here from just behind Hoover Dam on the Arizona side. Just out of frame and to the right is the fictional time rift caused by the .0000006 mph slowdown of the rotation of the earth, if it actually existed (extra credit and my undying admiration is available to anyone who understood that last reference).
Back in reality, the low, low, low water level isn't the only thing that's interesting about Hoover Dam. Under construction and just barely visible (on the left) is the brand new Hoover Dam Bypass project, a four lane highway that will cut travel time for anyone not interested in seeing the dam or stopping at its security checkpoints. Its centerpiece will be a rather high bridge over the Colorado River, one which promises striking views of the very dam you came all that way specifically not to see. Go figure.
