The North Rim - The Grand Canyon, but backwards.

The Grand Canyon gets almost 5 million visitors a year.  That is almost as many people as live in the entire state of Arizona.  Sadly, an extraordinarily high number of those people all visit the same few viewpoints on the South Rim, take the exact same photos, hit the gift shop, and are on their way back to Vegas within a few hours.

 

Not us.  Stephanie and I are pretty chummy with the ol' "GC" as we like to call her.

 

You see, a couple of summers ago we had the incredible opportunity to join Stephanie's parents (a.k.a Donna & Steve) on a hike from the South Rim to the bottom of the canyon, spend a night at the historic Phantom Ranch, and then hike back out again the following day. This is something that fewer than one tenth of one percent of visitors ever get to do - partially because getting these reservations requires luck, patience, persistence and planning everything out more than a year in advance.  Considering Stephanie and I are neither lucky nor patient, nor can tell you where we are going to be next month let alone next year, we would probably never have had the opportunity without the foresight of Donna and Steve (a.k.a. "the most awesomest in-laws ever").

 

So while we were already intimate with the Grand Canyon, over Thanksgiving we decided to take our relationship to the next level.  This time we visited the North Rim.





 

"The North Rim you say?  Never heard of it.  Picture doesn't look familiar..."

 

That is because the North Rim is to the South Rim what Lisa Roberts is to her sister Julia.   Just as attractive, but much less popular.

 

Less than 10% of visitors ever go to the North Rim.  Even though it is only 10 miles from the South Rim as the crow flies, what a ten miles it is!  It requires 212 miles of driving to get there, and that is enough to deter anybody but the most hardcore sightseers. Add to that, the fact that the Park facilities were closed for the winter, and the fact that the road to the park was only still open because of the late arrival of snow, and you have the perfect scenario for people like us.  It was almost deserted.

 

How many times in life do you get to spend a sunny afternoon gazing at one of the seven wonders of the world?   Not many.  Now, how often do you get to do that it in almost total peace and solitude with nobody but your beautiful wife and your crazy dog?  In our case, once.





 

Here's a couple of fun facts:

1) The North Rim is 1000 ft higher than the South Rim, so the distance to the bottom is greater.

2) From the North Rim you can see all the way down to the Colorado river - something you cannot typically do from the South Rim.

3) Dogs seem to have little or no appreciation for spectacular scenery.



 

Maggie loved the hikes to the many crazy view points, but wasn't a big fan of the viewpoints themselves.  We aren't sure if she has a fear of heights, or was just really annoyed that each viewpoint meant the end of the trail and that we were going to force her to pose for photographs, and then turn around and head back to the car.



 

It was crisp, it was cold, it was clear.  It was awesome.

 

And while not all the views were as jaw dropping as the quintessential postcard view from the South Rim, there was more variety of scenery, a more natural, laid back feel, and more crazy rocks to climb out on when you feel like scaring the be-jeebers out of your wife. 





 

One of the neatest things was looking across the canyon at the trails we had hiked down and up on our previous visit.

 

As we sat there in silence, enjoying the quiet and solitude, we could look across and see the sun glinting off the cars packed with tourists lined up on the South Rim. Poor buggers.



 

This viewpoint in particular was incredible.  It must be really spectacular in the morning with the sun at your back.



 



Up next... Buckskin Gulch - The most dangerous hike in North America