Chapter 9: The Grand Canyon and Beyond

The first time most people see the Grand Canyon, they are left truly speechless. This is for two reasons – the canyon is a sight like no other, and anything anyone’s ever seen or heard about it left them utterly unprepared for the real thing. Pictures and descriptions, no matter how vivid, just don’t do justice to the Grand Canyon, with its innumerable side canyons and its changing look from season to season and hour to hour. The Grand Canyon is one of the Seven Wonders of the Natural World. (The other six, according to the National Geographic Society, are: Mt. Everest, the harbor at Rio de Janeiro, Iguazu Falls in Argentina, California’s Giant Sequoias, the Nile River, and the Aurora Borealis.)
U.S. 89 takes you from Page, Arizona south to the turnoff to the Grand Canyon. East of Page is Monument Valley on the Utah/Arizona border, for some inexplicable reason the scene of many car commercials. It’s a drive of more than two hours on State Highway 98 and U.S. 160, should you want to take that detour before returning to U.S. 89 for the trip to the Grand Canyon.
We’ve already talked about the Grand Canyon’s North Rim in Chapter 8, so this chapter focuses on the much more heavily visited South Rim. U.S. 89 gets you there through the harsh northern Arizona desert and the Navajo Indian Reservation. As you travel across the desert you’ll see small stands occupied by local Navajo selling various trinkets – it’s worth a stop at one or two. You’ll certainly be more than ready for a stop by the time you reach Cameron, which is fortunate. There’s a terrific trading post there with a full-service restaurant and a huge gift shop.
At Cameron you’ll leave U.S. 89 and turn west on State Highway 64 for an hour’s drive to the park. Until you actually get your first glimpse of the canyon there’s precious little in the landscape to indicate it’s there.
Some basic geology: The Grand Canyon is more than 5,000 feet deep and 277 miles long, created over millions of years by the Colorado River. The parts of the Grand Canyon that most of the park’s five million annual visitors see is only a small piece of the canyon, but probably the most spectacular piece.
The South Rim is open year-round and can be even more spectacular with a dusting of snow in the low light of winter. During the peak season between Memorial Day and Labor Day the South Rim is just plain crowded along the top of the canyon, though you can find solitude on the hiking trails. Still, to beat the mid-summer heat and crowds, consider an early spring or fall visit. Since the South Rim is at 7,000 feet elevation, summers aren’t unbearably hot. If you descend to the canyon floor, however, temperatures are commonly well above 100 degrees.
There are four ways to see the Grand Canyon: By driving (or, during peak season, taking a park bus) on the park road and viewing the canyon from the pullouts, by hiking or taking a mule-train into the canyon, by floating down the canyon, or by flying over the canyon. You’ll need some help, obviously, to do the flying, floating or riding. Float trips down the Colorado River and through the canyon, or mule trips into the canyon, should be arranged well ahead of time – the same time you make your room reservations, probably at least six months before your trip. Overflights of the canyon or can be arranged upon arrival (and are the subject of much disagreement among park aficionados, some of whom argue that airplane engine noise spoils the experience for the earthbound).
OK, you’ve hiked now in Glacier, Yellowstone and Grand Teton. The Grand Canyon is a different experience altogether. For one, if you’re going to the river you’re losing a mile in elevation, which means you’ve got to come back up. For another, all the trails are essentially chiseled out of the side of the canyon, so you’ll have some unforgettable views, as long as you’re not afraid of heights. For the heartiest of souls, you can hike from rim to rim, spending the night camping on the canyon floor or at Phantom Ranch, a guest house with indoor accommodations (that must be reserved well in advance) at the bottom of the canyon between the South and North Rims of the park. Though some folks try it, it’s not advised to hike from the rim to the river and back in a day. Even if you’re in great shape, the exertion and the need to replenish fluids and calories is extreme. Also, don’t venture down a trail without supplies and lose track of your distance. Going down is easy; coming up isn’t. Dehydration kills more people than falls at the Grand Canyon.
Some trails worth considering:
As we mentioned in the previous chapter, taking pictures at the Grand Canyon is a tricky proposition. The light desert air and the contrasting light of the canyon make for challenging conditions. Your best bet is to take pictures during the morning or evening when the colors are richer. The trouble is, you’ll be shooting areas with a lot of shadows. Follow some simple steps: 1) Select the image area you want to shoot. 2) Identify the area that has obvious mid-tones – about midway between the lightest and darkest parts of the image area. 3) Set your camera’s exposure time and aperture to capture that area. 4) Take your photo, then “bracket” it with one step faster and one step slower than the original photo. 5) Take lots of pictures in the hope that some will actually turn out. Many people return from the Grand Canyon to find rolls of over-exposed shots because they didn’t understand some basic picture-taking principles.
There is a wider range of lodging on the South Rim than the North Rim, both inside the park or at the village of Grand Canyon just south of the park. During the summer reservations well in advance are essential.

Havasu Canyon

There’s a place like no other on earth in one of the Grand Canyon’s side canyons that few people ever see because of the difficulty in getting there. Anyone who goes, however, marvels. This is Havasu Canyon on the tiny Havasupai Indian Reservation, which numbers about 700 souls. There are outfitters that will take you into Havasu Canyon by hiking up the drainage from the Colorado River, but there’s a better way.
First, you have to reserve through the Havasupai Reservation either a camping spot or a room at a small lodge at Supai, the only village inside the reservation. This can be done by calling 520-448-2121. The only way into Havasu Canyon is by trail on horseback or foot, or by helicopter. Mail and supplies are delivered into Supai by these means only. To walk or ride by horseback you’ve first got to get to the trailhead at Hualapai Hilltop, which is at the end of a county road accessed by a dirt road from State Road 64 south of Grand Canyon village or State Road 66 north of Interstate 40. You’ve got to want to get there to find the way.
Once at Hualapai Hilltop, you park your car and begin the hike down a series of switchbacks and eventually into a dry drainage, which takes you into Havasu Canyon, carved by Havasu Creek. The creek runs a brilliant turquoise from its mineral content and makes a quick decent to the Colorado River perhaps 10 miles downstream. The village of Supai is about seven miles from the trailhead and perhaps a mile into the canyon after leaving the drainage through which the hiking trail leads. Between Supai and the Colorado, Havasu Creek tumbles in a series of waterfalls, the most spectacular of which are Havasu Falls and Mooney Falls. Each has a large pool at its base, perfect for wading and swimming. The walk to the base of Havasu Falls is uneventful; the walk to the base of Mooney is not. Mooney spills more than 200 feet and the walk to its base requires a descent down a narrow, steep trail that at times is tunneled into the cliff face. Chains and ropes aid the climber, but it’s nerve-racking nonetheless.
The turquoise color of the water and the crimson color of the sandstone over which it falls make for spectacular scenery. At the base of each falls are travertine steps that collect the water in pools before it slides on downstream. The falls have changed personality over the years as occasional flash floods race through the canyon, wreaking havoc in the village and altering the landscape.
Havasu Canyon is accessible year-round and gets busy (by Havasupai standards) in the summer (the canyon receives about 25,000 visitors a year, compared to Grand Canyon’s 5 million). Again, consider an off-season visit when the crowds and heat are down. Take your camera and lots of film – descriptions you’ll give your friends won’t do the trick. There’s a small café and grocery store in Supai to restock, but grocery prices are pretty stiff and the café’s fare is unspectacular.

A New Year’s visit to Havasupai

My boys – Jeremy, then 15, and Brad, then 17 – and I made the trek to Havasu Canyon one year between Christmas and New Year, which turned out to be an ideal time to visit. We had the place almost to ourselves (not counting the folks living in Supai, the small village inside the canyon), and the weather was cool and dry (mid-70s during the day, mid-40s at night).
Havasu Canyon is not a place you visit on a whim. You must get reservations at the only lodge inside the canyon or for one of the campsites downstream from the village. You must purchase a pass just to visit the place during the day, which keeps the crowds down. You also must drive around the big ditch called the Grand Canyon, which means a trip hundreds of miles out of your way through Nevada or Utah and then parallel to the Grand Canyon to a remote place called Hualapai Hilltop inside the Hualapai Reservation. This is the trailhead to Havasu Canyon.
We got to the hilltop in early afternoon after leaving in the morning from St. George, Utah, and parked alongside a handful of other cars. This also is the staging area where mule trains take supplies into Supai. It was warm and sunny and perfect hiking weather.
The trail begins an immediate and steep drop down switchbacks before settling into a dry wash and continuing a more leisurely descent toward the canyon. It’s a quick hike, all downhill. After about six miles or so, we crossed Havasu Creek and turned north toward Supai. We reached the village about 30 minutes later.
Supai is a quiet, dusty place with comfortable, small homes, a church, a school, a post office, a meeting hall, a small store and a smaller café. There seemed to be about as many dogs as humans. The lodge turned out to be clean and comfortable with few amenities. My boys were horrified to see that the room had no TV. There were no telephones, either.
It had been a pretty easy hike, so after an unspectacular but reasonably priced dinner at the café we meandered down the creek a mile or two, coming upon Navajo Falls before darkness sent us back up the trail to the lodge. It was still early, so we went to the lobby and borrowed some books from a selection of Reader’s Digest condensed volumes. The quiet in the room was downright unsettling, particularly since it was not broken by passing traffic outside.
We got up early the next morning and had an unspectacular but reasonably priced breakfast before heading downstream to the waterfalls for which Havasu Canyon is famous. We went past a number of small cascades before arriving at the highlight of any Havasu Canyon trip, Havasu Falls.
When we visited, Havasu Falls was a twin cascade of about 100 feet, each stream containing roughly an equal volume of water (and I am told the falls still run in twin torrents). I have seen older pictures of Havasu Falls that show only a single stream of water. From time to time flash floods race through Havasu Canyon, wreaking havoc in the village and changing the character of the falls. A particularly destructive flood in the early 90s required the tribe to bring in a company to artificially reconstruct the travertine terraces below Havasu Falls. By our visit, the travertine had re-formed completely and had returned, I was told, to its original, natural state.
The trail follows the creek until it reaches the top of Havasu Falls, at which point we followed the trail along a cliffside. To our right, we could see the falls from various vantages, each a stunning sight. Eventually, we made our way to the pool at the foot of the falls, where I spent 90 minutes or so getting pictures from every conceivable angle.
We ate a light lunch and picked up the trail again to find Mooney Falls, less than two miles downstream.
Mooney Falls is a different story altogether. It’s a drop of more than 200 feet in a single torrent. At its base is another pool of turquoise water and more travertine terraces. From here, the stream begins a rapid descent toward the Grand Canyon and the Colorado River.
I am, regrettably, extremely afraid of heights. My palms get sweaty as I write this, recalling the view of Mooney Falls. The sandstone drops straight down on all sides of the falls and the trail is chiseled out of, and sometimes tunneled into, the side of the cliff-face. Despite my deep desire to photograph the falls from below, I couldn’t bring myself to inch down the trail to the base of the falls. All my pictures, therefore, are taken from a vantage point about three-quarters of the way to the top of the falls, but away from any real or perceived danger. Sometimes it’s a real pain to be a wimp.
I shot all the pictures I could and we made our way back to Havasu Falls, where we snacked and I took more pictures. Reluctantly, we eventually made our way back to Supai for more unspectacular but reasonably priced food, a hot shower and condensed books.
Having hiked 10 miles or more the first day and another seven or eight the next, we decided to schedule a horseback ride back out the next morning (especially considering that hiking out was going to prove a whole lot more work than hiking in).
After breakfast the next morning (unspectacular but reasonably priced), we got on our horses just outside the lodge and, led by a couple of Havasupai men, made our way up the trail. My boys took particular glee at my inability to coerce my horse to do anything I wanted it to, particularly when I resorted to yelling “hiyah” (usually followed by assorted curse words). For months after the trip, my boys thought it clever to yell “hiyah” whenever they wanted to tick me off.
Aside from the cursing, the trip back up the trail was pleasant. It was in the 80s that day, making us glad we chose the horse ride instead of making the long climb on foot. We arrived at the trailhead at mid-day, with plenty of time to drive back to St. George. We had lunch in Kingman. The food was unspectacular but reasonably priced.

On to Flagstaff

You can get to Flagstaff either by returning to Cameron and picking up U.S. 89 (the recommended route), or by heading south out of Grand Canyon Village on State Road 64 to Williams, where you’ll pick up I-40 and head east to Flagstaff. We recommend the U.S. 89 route because it affords two more wandering opportunities.
The first is about 20 miles south of Cameron, where a loop road turns east off the highway to take you to the Wupatki National Monument and Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument. Wupatki is a group of Sinagua and Anasazi ruins dating from the 12th and 13th centuries. There’s a visitors center and an excellent self-guided trail.
Staying on the loop road, you’ll arrive at Sunset Crater after 15 or 20 more minutes. Sunset Crater is a thousand-year-old volcanic cone and crater, the youngest volcano in the San Francisco Volcanic Field, which encompasses 2,000 square miles in northern Arizona. It must have been a very interesting area when the Sinagua and Anasazi settled there, only 200 years after the Sunset volcano went dormant.
There’s one more place to see before you get to Flagstaff, if you’re visiting at the right time of year. Just before arriving in Flagstaff is a turnoff for Townsend Road heading east. Before the small town of Winona the road separates into Leupp Road and Winona Road – take Leupp Road by taking the left fork. Take this into the Navajo Reservation. Just after entering the reservation is a turnoff to the left (north) on Navajo Nation Road 70, which immediately turns to gravel, then dirt. Your destination, seven or eight miles down the dirt road, is Grand Falls on the Little Colorado River. Eleven months out of the year the falls are just a trickle of muddy water dribbling off a broad, 185-foot-high sandstone face. During spring snowmelt, however, it becomes a muddy torrent and a spectacular sight, with a drop higher than Niagara. Check locally to find out if the river is running high, which usually occurs in late winter. If you get there during the peak flows, it’s an awesome sight.
After returning to U.S. 89, you’ll arrive at Flagstaff, which is U.S. 89’s terminus. (A note: U.S. 89 used to continue on from here and some folks consider the state highways that run along this path a continuation of U.S. 89. For the purposes of this book, Flagstaff is the end of the road.) Flagstaff sits at the foot of Humphrey’s Peak, which at just under 13,000 feet is Arizona’s highest mountain. Flagstaff sits at 7,000 above sea level, claiming to be one of the highest cities in the U.S., home to about 60,000 people. Phoenix is two freeway hours away at an elevation of 1,300 feet. Flagstaff is home to Northern Arizona University and feels very much like the mountain town that it is, unlike Arizona’s other cities – which are in the heart of the Sonoran Desert. It’s also the county seat of Coconino County, the second largest county by land area in the U.S. at 12 million acres. The county stretches all the way from just south of Flagstaff to the Utah border.
Some other nearby natural attractions include:
Flagstaff is a great base from which to tour northern Arizona and see the Grand Canyon, with a great selection of lodging and dining and a comfortable summer climate.

Sedona

Our last stop on our tour of U.S. 89, Sedona is actually about 30 miles south of where U.S. 89 terminates. But while we’re here…
Sedona has become Arizona’s second most popular tourist destination, behind the big ditch to the north. To get there from Flagstaff, you take a short hop down I-17 to the exit for Oak Creek Canyon on Alternate State Road 89. This road takes you into the spectacular Oak Creek Canyon, a steep and narrow canyon that drops you from nearly 7,000 feet down to Sedona’s 4,500-foot elevation.
The town of Sedona is an eclectic collection of shops, restaurants and lodging, ranging from standard to exclusive. In addition to great shopping and dining, there’s terrific hiking, four-wheel-drive trips, and golf. You’ll also run across plenty of new age folks with hip philosophies in their heads and crystals hanging from their rear-view mirrors. Word has it that Sedona is at the center of some kind of harmonic convergence. Most folks just think it’s pretty. There are state parks on both the north and south ends of town and a number of great hikes. Slide Rock State Park is north of Sedona and features a natural water slide and a hike to Vultee Arch, described below. Red Rock State Park is south of town along Oak Creek, and includes an environmental education center.
Other popular hikes in the area include:
Once you’re in Sedona, you can also choose between hot air balloon or helicopter rides, backcountry Jeep tours, golf on five area courses, horseback riding or even river rafting. There are a number of outfitters ready to take care of you. There are at least three spas in the Sedona area for pampering.