This is going to be kind of a crazy story. But it was fun living it. It all began with us wanting to see The Grand Canyon. There are two popular places to see it, the North Rim and the South Rim. The North Rim is about 2 hours from Southern Utah and the South Rim is about 6 hours from Southern Utah. So, of course, we wanted to see The Grand Canyon via the North Rim. And that is where our journey began.
On Saturday morning (March 11), we woke up, had some breakfast and we were going to try to maneuver our way to the northern side of The Grand Canyon. Shouldn’t be too hard. Right? Wrong! The Arizona Department of Transportation closes the road, State Road 67, to the North Entrance, until May, so you cannot enter the park even if the National Park Service kept that entrance open. However, we were told that there were many different dirt roads that led to The Grand Canyon. I looked at a map and thought I had found a route to get to Thunder Spring. So, we packed some food, an overnight change of clothes (just in case), a water jug and we were on our way.
We made our way into Arizona and headed toward Fredonia. Just outside of Fredonia, on US Route Alt 89, you can reach the Kaibab National Forest. The plan was to take National Forest Road 422a to Ryan Road and onto a few other dirt roads until we made it to Thunder Road, which would take us there. We made it to the Kaibab National Forest in the early afternoon and had plenty of sunshine and clear skies. We made it down 422a to Ryan Road and continued back onto 422a. We made it miles into the interior and past Big Springs Cabin (about the 1/2 way point).
That is when we ran into it. The dirt road was completely covered in ice and some snow. I saw some uncovered dirt road ahead, so we put Ebony into 4WD and made a run at it. We cruised through without an issue. Then we came to a part of the road that was uphill, sloped towards a drop off with no guard rail and covered in ice. The danger was too great so we turned around.
It was at that point that I said,”Well…we didn’t get to see The Grand Canyon and I still want to see it.” So I said, “South Rim?” I looked around the car and got nods from all of my fellow Nomads. Off to the South Rim we went. The route actually took us through a place called Marble Canyon, located upstream from The Grand Canyon on the Colorado River. The scenery up to this point was so beautiful.
We continued southward until we reached Cameron. This is the city that is at the junction of the road that leads to the Eastern Entrance of The Grand Canyon National Park. It was dark and we decided to stop, grab some dinner and find a hotel room for the night. There was only one motel in Cameron and it was booked full. I called a few of the ones inside The Grand Canyon Village (in the park). They had one available for $481 for one night. We passed on that one. Every hotel I called in Flagstaff, an hour away, was booked. We finally found one in Tuba City on the Navajo Reservation, about 30 minutes away, for $100 per night per room. We were tired and that was in the range of expectation.
We headed to Tuba City, checked in, and got some rest. The next morning, bright and early, we headed to The Grand Canyon. We took State Road 64 to the East Entrance. Not too far inside the East Entrance we came to the Desert View Watchtower, a 70 foot stone building right on the South Rim of The Grand Canyon. If you go up to the top, you will get some spectacular views of The Grand Canyon. Oddly enough, there were not many people there.
We continued onward towards Grand Canyon Village. Along the way there were multiple pull offs and lookouts. We pulled into every one and explored. Most only had a few people and we were able to see a multitude of different angles of the canyon. At one point, we actually saw a spot where the Colorado River had eroded all of the soil and rock down to the actual plate of the Earth’s crust!
The last lookout we came to was Grandview. The parking lot was completely full. We had to circle twice before finding a spot. This particular place seemed crowded because it was the first place you could park and hike down to the canyon floor. We opted not to do this because it took about 6 to 8 hours to reach the bottom and then 6 to 8 hours to come back up. We were not prepared for that kind of hike. After a little exploring around the rim, we headed to the visitor’s center that was towards the village. The place was completely packed! We used the rest room and got out of there.
We knew that the crowds would only get worse from there, so we decided to head on out of the park. We had explored The Grand Canyon for hours and were completely satisfied with our experience. So, we hit the road and headed back towards home base. However, we took a different way back.
The return route took us through Page, Arizona. This is the location of the Famous Horseshoe Bend just south of Lake Powell. For those of you who are unaware, this is a place in the Colorado River where the river does a 180 degree bend to form, what looks like, a horseshoe. You can access it by boat from Lake Powell. Or, you can pull off of US Route 89 to see it from the cliffs above. This is what we did.
The pull off has paved parking and outhouse style bathrooms. From the parking area, it is a 1.5 mile hike, round trip, to get to the steep cliff overlook. The entire way there is fairly sandy and, with the exception of having to hike up a steep hill there and back, the hike was rather easy. We arrived at the overlook at it was magnificent. We had never seen a river do this. And, we were 1000 feet above it to view it. The boats in the river looked like floating pieces of rice, they were so small.
One word of caution, there can be quite a few people around. There are no guard rails. And if someone is careless around you and you are not aware, you may get knocked off-balance if you are too close to the edge. So, please proceed with caution. We found that if you hike about 50 yards to the left of where everyone is, there are no crowds and the view is still great.
From here we headed straight for home base. We were beat from driving for two straight days and from hiking around all of the landscapes we encountered. What started as a simple couple hour scouting expedition to find a dirt road access to the North Rim led us into a 2 day long jaunt covering hundreds of miles. But, boy was it fun. Safe Travels.
