The Grand Canyon-North Rim (06-18-22)

 Most people who visit the grand canyon visit the south rim- it has more view points, amenities, and is accessible more of the year. The north rim sits at a higher elevation and it gets a lot more snow than the south rim. It's also a lot cooler, and that’s what we were looking for.

We stopped at the nearby Kaibab National Forest visitor center and spoke to a volunteer about good places near the park for dispersed camping. Armed with some great suggestions we took off for the east rim.

About 6 miles down a dirt road we found the perfect spot. Enough sun for solar, level ground, and a perk- using our cell signal booster, we had decent data speeds to use our electronics.

The view from our chairs was amazing.

The north rim has a smaller visitor center than the south rim, but we checked it out.  I had forgotten my hat (rare for me) so we went into the gift shop to see if I could find something decent. I have always wanted a hat from a national park- but for the most part they are “ranger” green- kinda boring.  Lucky for me I found one that wasn’t!

We did some short hikes in that area since we were there. Bright Angel Point is a short walk to a popular viewpoint, so we joined the throngs of people on the trail.

Back at the rig, we made some tentative plans for what we wanted to see and do.

Our first full day we drove back to the visitor center to hike 3 miles of the Trancept Trail. There are, for the most part, two types of trails in this park. Those that go down into the canyon, and those that go along the rim. Temperatures in the canyon are over 100 right now, so we stuck to the rim trails.

After our 3 mile hike, we had more time so we decided to drive to one of the viewpoints that was on our list for the following day.

You start to wonder after a while, just how many different viewpoints do you need to see? The view doesn't change that much.

That being said, Point Imperial was one of the better views, in my opinion. I am glad we made the effort to get there.

Day two we drove the scenic Cape Royal Drive. There are hikes and viewponts along the way but we decided we'd better do the hike first, or we might get lazy. 

This hike, Cape Final was about 4 miles round trip to a pretty nice viewpoint.

Done with our hike, we stopped at a picnic area and ate our lunch, and drove to the end of the road- Angels Window Viewpoint.  There are 3 pictures of this…

the one we took looking at Angels Window (note the hole in the rock),

the one we took walking out onto that rock….

and the view from that rock. What was neat about this spot is that you  could clearly see the Colorado River deep in the canyon.

We honestly decided to skip most of the other “viewpoints” along the road.

After a day off, where we just went for a walk down the road and hung around the camper, our final day we hiked part of the Widforss Trail.

It is named for a gentleman who was known for his paintings of the park.  The actual trail is 10 miles- we did half of it. This is one of those trails that we call “good exercise”.  Although it was along the rim, we were mostly hiking in the woods, with occasional glimpses of the canyon.  Had we done the whole trail I am sure the view would have been spectacular- but we aren’t up for a 10 mile hike yet.