Grand Canyon National Park

We’d never been to the Grand Canyon, but we knew what to expect. The superlatives, the inability to comprehend the distances, the awe. We had 24 hours to see it, an admittedly paltry amount of time for something so, well, grand. But Mr. Adventure’s conference in Phoenix was as close as we were likely to get, so off we went.

Driving to Grand Canyon

First, though, we had to get there. And although I’d been exploring the Phoenix area for a few days, I didn’t really understand how huge that city is until we tried to leave it behind. We left the conference hotel and got on the highway going about 65 mph. Fully one hour later, still driving at highway speeds, we reached the Phoenix city boundary. That’s some serious sprawl.

But maybe that was a good preview of what lay ahead: a really huge chasm in the earth. With 7 million visits each year, Grand Canyon National Park is one of the most popular crown jewels in the national park system. It was late October, and we hoped to avoid the worst of the crowds — and get there early enough to nab a campsite.

As we drove north through the Tonto, Prescott, and Coconino national forests, we whipped past a familiar brown sign that read, “Montezuma Castle National Monument.” So, so tempting. But the Grand Canyon beckoned, so we kept the pedal down and agreed to stop on the way back if we had time. Soon we drove up onto the Coconino Plateau and into the park.

Just another high-desert forest

From the entrance, Grand Canyon looks like a lot of other high desert places. We drove through a mixed forest of pine, fir, juniper, and spruce, following directional signs to Mather Campground. We got a campsite, set up the tent, and walked back to catch the shuttle bus to the rim (Mr. Adventure had to drag me away from watching a white-breasted nuthatch on a nearby tree). The bus was pretty full, and with the other passengers we alighted at Mather Point to find…a parking lot. The buses load and unload on a bus-only oval surrounded by several large parking lots stuffed with cars. No canyon.

We walked onto the paved plaza and saw a park store, a bike rental/coffee shop, and a visitor center. The afternoon was slipping by and we wanted to be at the rim to watch the sunset, so we got a brochure and a ranger’s advice on what to do with the limited time we had, and started walking toward Mather Point, still in the pine forest and now with plenty of other people all heading in the same direction.

Here’s the thing. There’s no preparation, no hint of what’s to come. Intellectually, of course, you know you’re about to see the Grand Canyon, and you know it’s going to be breathtaking. But you’re still walking on a paved path through a forest of Ponderosa and lodgepole pine, inhaling the sharp tang of high-elevation evergreens. Canyon? What canyon?

The South Rim

The forest ended, we stepped out of the trees, and there it was. Just like it looks in a thousand pictures, just like we imagined it.

It is, in fact, too enormous to comprehend. That tiny trickle is a mile down, and it’s the Colorado River? Yeah, right. The clearly visible North Rim is ten miles away? Yeah, right.

It is, in fact, painted with every gorgeous saturated hue of the desert palette. That black layer deep in the shadows at the bottom is the oldest rock on Earth? Yeah, right.

It is, in fact, awe-inspiring. And along with several hundred other visitors, we stood at the rim, looking and looking and looking as if we might possibly be able to absorb what we saw. But really, we couldn’t.

So we started walking, first to lose the crowds at Mather Point, because really, the canyon is big enough that we shouldn’t have to elbow our way in for a photo. And then we walked because we realized that walking might help us begin to understand the enormity of this place.

Mather Point to Bright Angel Trailhead

The nice thing about walking, even on the crowded South Rim of the Grand Canyon in October, is that relatively few other people are doing the same thing, and you’re all moving so you’re not jammed on top of one another at a viewpoint.

The Rim Trail includes the fascinating Trail of Time, with trailside exhibits of rocks from the canyon presented in chronological order. We started at the east end and walked backwards through time, from the top of the canyon to the bottom.

In addition to the rocks, there are interpretive panels and models along the way as well as the Yuvapai Geology Museum. Bronze markers set into the path indicate where in time you are, with every tenth one labeled in millions of years. The trail is nearly three miles long, and each meter of trail represents one million years of history. There are nearly 5,000 meters of trail. It’s a good exhibit, yet I still find it difficult to comprehend the immensity of time the canyon contains. I’ve decided that’s part of the experience of being there.

About three miles from Mather Point, the sun kissed the horizon and shadows filled the canyon. We stood at the Bright Angel trailhead, and Mr. Adventure said, “Let’s go down a ways.” I hesitated. The light was failing, the trail was littered with loose rock, and it was starting to get chilly. But we don’t get to the Grand Canyon every day, so off we went, for maybe a half-mile.

Kolb Studio

We passed several people heading up, clearly coming from the bottom of the canyon at the end of a very long day. It’s 9.5 miles and about 4,400 feet down to the Bright Angel Campground and the Colorado River, although there are many popular turnaround points before then. Either way, though, it’s a long walk down and a long walk up at high elevation, with limited water available. Some hikers looked exhilarated. Others looked exhausted.

Heading back up, we stopped in the Kolb Studio, a structure that clings to the side of the canyon by its figurative fingernails. It was the home and workspace of the Kolb brothers, photographers whose work documenting the Grand Canyon is memorialized inside. We wandered the temporary exhibit of painted interpretations of the Grand Canyon, spotting two pieces by Utah artist Michelle Condrat, whose geometric forms evoke the clean lines of midcentury art and architecture, at least to me. Her original works are beyond my means, but her prints for sale on Etsy are a bargain.

Fred Harvey and the Grand Canyon

By the time we left the studio, it was well and truly dark, and we strolled back toward Bright Angel Lodge and a meal we’d been anticipating all day. The Harvey House is one of several restaurants, hotels, and shops at the Grand Canyon that date to the Golden Age of national park travel, from the railroad era into the automobile age. The Fred Harvey Company essentially made the American Southwest a tourist destination, with hotels and restaurants scattered across the region. In New Mexico, we’d seen a Harvey House in Belen, and Santa Fe’s La Fonda Hotel retains the elegance of the time.

But the Grand Canyon was Fred Harvey’s masterpiece, with El Tovar Lodge perched on the South Rim and a collection of other buildings nearby. These include the Bright Angel Lodge, designed in 1935 by architect Mary Colter — one of the few female architects of her time — for the Harvey Company and featuring a stone fireplace that replicates the geological layers of the Grand Canyon. It’s now part of the gift shop, which features diverting exhibits of Harvey artifacts, such as china, silver, and menus.

Other Harvey facilities at Grand Canyon designed by Colter, whose work is notable for its incorporation of Southwestern Native American cultural elements, include Desert View Watchtower (1932), Lookout Studio (1914), Phantom Ranch (1922), Hopi House (1905), and Hermit’s Rest (1914). The buildings are collectively designated a National Historic Landmark.

Harvey House dinner

We learned all this while waiting for a table at the Harvey House Cafe in Bright Angel Lodge. The Fred Harvey Company was justly famous for its excellent food and service, provided by the legendary Harvey Girls. These young women, many seeking adventure in the West, were required to be unmarried and white. Wearing crisp black-and-white uniforms, they provided consistency and efficiency across Harvey properties and were celebrated in the 1946 Judy Garland movie The Harvey Girls.

The Harvey Girls are long gone, but the dining room at Bright Angel Lodge remains, and its menu recalls the glory days of the company (which national parks’ concessioner Xanterra purchased in 1968). Mr. Adventure opted for trout and I savored turkey with all the trimmings. It’s hard to tell how much of the dining room decor is original, but we enjoyed the wagon-wheel chandeliers, hewn-timber posts, and beamed ceiling.

That continuity of experience — eating in a restaurant that has served national park visitors since the 1930s, hiking on a storied trail, taking in magnificent scenic views — is one of the things I love about visiting the parks.

By the time we finished, the night had grown cold and stars spangled the sky. We took the shuttle back to the campground and found our tent by starlight and the glow of nearby campfires.

Sunrise

Temperatures in the 20s notwithstanding, plenty of campers were up and moving by the time we rolled out of the tent at 6am. Given the sunrise time of 6:47am, we were probably a little late getting started, but we made it to the rim with about 15 minutes to spare.

Once again, we found ourselves surrounded by flocks of people, their cameras at the ready. Once again, we started walking, finding a quieter spot east of Mather Point. A photographer had set up equipment and snapped photos while his girlfriend sat shivering on a rock. About 100 feet below us, a young guy jumped over and over and over while his companion tried to snap the perfect Instagram shot. Mr. Adventure and I moved a bit so a tree blocked the jumper, who missed the entire sunrise light show, and just sat there and looked.

Ooh! Aah!

Relying on advice from our friend and travel expert Scott Jones, we planned to do a short hike into the canyon and leave via the east entrance. We boarded a mostly empty shuttle bus and got off at the South Kaibab Trailhead, then headed down the trail. We knew we didn’t have much time, but Scott insisted that getting below the rim would help us understand the canyon. He was right.

Just being on the trail, heading down down down, revealed a different Grand Canyon. The rim is a sort of barrier. I walked along the edge and looked into the canyon but I didn’t feel part of the landscape. Now we were inside the long span of rock and water and time. There is something about trailing your hand along the stone walls that makes the canyon feel more intimate. Everything is closer, touchable, tangible.

All too quickly, we arrived at the first stop on the South Kaibab Trail, a small overlook called Ooh-Aah Point. Aside from a ground squirrel clearly accustomed to hiker handouts, we were alone. The air was cool and smelled of sun-warmed rock and juniper. We sat on the rock for a few minutes, quietly pointing out things like hikers and the Colorado River twisting muddily far below. Finally, the Grand Canyon felt personal.

Reluctantly heading up, we passed clumps of hikers heading down, each group representing a shuttle bus unloading. Back at Mather Campground, we broke down our camp, packed the car, and headed eastward.

Desert View

Just before the park exit, we stopped to take in the vista at Desert View, home of another Mary Colter design, the Watchtower. The round stone tower is modeled on ancient Colorado Plateau structures, particularly those at Hovenweep and Mesa Verde. Designed to blend into the surrounding rock, it’s difficult to see where the building’s foundation begins. Outside, petroglyphs removed from Ash Fork, about 65 miles southwest and the site of another now-gone Harvey House, adorn the building. I always view features like this with mixed feelings, because today it would be unethical to remove petroglyphs from their original site. But in the 1930s it was, unfortunately, common (I saw the same thing at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin West in Scottsdale).

Inside the Watchtower, the first-floor Kiva Room is intended as a viewing area for visitors. Beyond, a three-story spiral staircase winds past Southwest motifs painted by Hopi and Euro-American artists. Mindful of our limited time, we climbed to the top of the tower and looked out, trying to drink in the western views of the canyon.

One last look

If we wanted to stop by Montezuma Castle National Monument and catch our flight out of Phoenix, it was time to leave. Trying to keep our eyes on the canyon and our feet moving forward, we walked to the car, climbed in, and drove away.

Writing this months after the visit, I’m struck by two things. First, in my journal I repeatedly mentioned the number of people there. Even in late fall, the visitors thronged Grand Canyon. A shuttle driver told us it seemed unusually crowded for that time of year. That’s par for the course at the popular parks, and I was glad we were able to escape it somewhat. Second, I feel as though having some time to try to process our visit has helped me write about it more cogently. At the time I felt overwhelmed and overstimulated — it was too much, as John Wesley Powell wrote. Now I feel like I must go back, take more time, and better deal with the grandeur. We barely scratched the surface of the Grand Canyon, and yes, it’s just like the pictures you’ve seen your whole life. But it’s entirely different, too.

You cannot see the Grand Canyon in one view, as if it were a changeless spectacle from which a curtain might be lifted, but to see it, you have to toil from month to month through its labyrinths.

John Wesley Powell, geologist and Grand Canyon explorer