The Other Grand Canyon

Just when we thought it was safe to put away our fleeces and turn off the furnace, we came to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. Last night was close to freezing and even set at 50 degrees, the furnace ran quite a bit. In the morning, the sun quickly warmed the trailer which enabled us to start a game of Monopoly, drink hot chocolate and coffee and begin our day.

Our first stop was, of course, (everyone say it with me) the visitor’s center. Elise picked up her (again, everyone) Junior Ranger packet and we checked with the ranger on a few hikes we were thinking of taking. There are lots of ranger talks going on already. Every day there is a morning nature walk, a condor talk, a geology talk and evening talks at the campground and lodge. We are heading back tonight for the talk at the lodge and we will go to the condor talk tomorrow and nature walk Thursday morning. I think we are looking forward to the condor talk the most. The Grand Canyon is in the largest range of the California condor. All of the ones here are tagged and you are encouraged to report sightings.



Our first walk was on the Bright Angel Canyon trail. This is the easy (paved) walk behind the visitor’s center and cottages. Elise and I looked down at the ground on the way to the overlook so that we could see it all at once and not bit by bit. I cried when I saw it. It is the most magnificent thing I have ever seen.



From the overlook, we wandered down the path to the end of the trail. There was an elder hostel group there listening to a talk given by one of their leaders about the geology of the canyon. I listened in from a perch above the trail and learned me a thing or two. Scientists’ best guess is that the earth formed about 4.5 billion years ago. For the first “while” (I can’t remember if he said a million or a billion years, but I think it’s a million) there was no water on earth. It was there, of course, but the earth was too hot and the water couldn’t condense. That’s pretty cool (figuratively speaking).



It was about 11:30 by the time we walked off of the trail and decided to have a little lunch at the lodge deli before heading to the North Kaibab Trail. Bobby and I split a yummy turkey sandwich and Elise made her way through a roast beef while we sat on the lodge veranda with front row seats looking across to the South Rim. As the crow flies, the South Rim is 10 miles away. By car, you have to drive over 200 miles to get around the canyon and it will take you a good five hours. Today was incredibly clear and we could see all the way to the San Francisco Mountains, over 60 miles away.



We discovered we got lucky on the weather when we stopped for gas on our way to the North Kaibab Trail. I asked the very nice lady who filled our tank how the weekend had been. She said the snow really kept people away. We have seen snow on the side of the road, but hadn’t realized how fresh it was.

The North Kaibab Trail is the only trail that goes down into the canyon from the north rim. The canyon is one mile deep, but the trail from here is 14 miles to the Colorado River. The rule of thumb for hiking here (because of elevation differences and the heat) is to divide your time into thirds. Use one third of your time heading out (or down). The last two thirds is what time you will need to get back. We hiked two miles (and about 1,450 feet) down to the Supai Tunnel which took us an hour and 10 minutes. Hiking back took one hour and 40 minutes. We sped up at the end because Elise had bet Bobby on what time we would get back to the trailhead and her time was sooner! Going back wasn’t as bad as we thought it would be, if the heavy breathing and red faces of uphill climbers was any indication. We took it pretty slow, though.









OK — we’re back from the 8:00 p.m. ranger talk…

I hadn’t realized this but the north rim is twice as far away (hiking distance, anyway) from the Colorado River as the south rim. The watershed for the north rim is the canyon, but the watershed for the south rim is just farther south. This means that the north rim is eroding faster (due to the water traveling to the Colorado River) than the south rim. The canyon walls are much steeper here too.


The San Francisco Mountains in the distance

I also learned that 90% of Grand Canyon visitors go to the south rim. Only 10% come here. Having not seen the south rim, I still say this is the better side. The meadows and boreal forest on the plateaus you drive through are worth the price of admission themselves. And there are far fewer people.

Something that you come across often in national parks and forests are fires — controlled and not. In Yosemite, we drove through a controlled burn area and on many trails we have seen signs of past fires. There is evidence of a very large one as you drive up into the Kaibab National Forest by Jacob’s Lake. The fire was started by lightning from a summer storm and was burning on the ground well. The forest managers decided to let it burn, since conditions seemed good. A few weeks into the burn, the wind kicked up and the fire crowned, which means that it went from the ground to the tops of trees and just started jumping. It even jumped the road. The whole north rim had to be evacuated, since the fire was along the only road in or out of this side of the park. Not the way I would have wanted to spend my vacation.