Grand Canyon National Park, Ariz. – “How totally boooring!”
That was how my teenage granddaughter envisioned her most recent birthday gift – a trip to the Grand Canyon.
Like, you know, by the time we hit Flagstaff, she figured our motoring fivesome – me, Grandma, our daughter and her two little darlings – should scrap our plans for the South Rim and take a 300-mile detour to Legoland.
“Not!” I said.
And, as things turned out, it was the right decision.
Amazingly, on the way home, we all gave our Arizona junket high marks. Even the Birthday Girl rated the experience as, like you know, “pretty good.” That, I’m told, in conservative teen-speak translates into something in the range of “nearly awesome.”
In any language, the scenery was superlative.
The canyon still ranks as one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World – 277 miles long, 10 miles wide and a mile deep.
Add to that the 473 gift shops, all holding sales, and you’ve got an abyss no one should miss.
After all, the Grand Canyon is the only “wonder” located in the U.S., and it’s an easy two-day drive from Denver. Moreover, it really should belong to Coloradans.
Sure, the National Park, established in 1919, is actually in northern Arizona, but it was created by our river, the Colorado.
Given the perfect geological conditions, all the Colorado needed was a couple of million years to produce the most scenic vistas in all the land.
The Grand Canyon now attracts about 5 million visitors a year. For some reason, that number has declined by about 2 million a year over the past decade. As a result, even the summer crowds are a bit thinner, and if you can make the trip after Labor Day, so much the better.
Our trip was successful largely because we all could agree on one important thing in advance: None of us had the desire or ability to camp out, hike, shoot rapids or spend a day aboard a 2-foot-wide mule on a 1-foot-wide ledge 5,000 feet above oblivion.
We went to look, not touch.
If you’re the type who is into more athletic pursuits, there are plenty of interesting options.
But if you’re thinking about a day or two riding on a mule train, first watch the documentary film on that particular adventure. Near the end, it shows the “tenderfeet” returning to the top, and some are so happy to be back on flat ground that they kiss their mules – on the mouth.
“Gross!” the girls exclaimed.
And it’s not the feet that were tender, we noted.
If you’re just interested in the sightseeing, like we were, I can offer some suggestions:
Get your overnight accommodations near the canyon. Most visitors to the park stay in Flagstaff or Williams, 70 miles to the south on Interstate 40.
There are only 900-plus rooms in the six lodges within the park itself on the canyon’s South Rim, and reservations there should be made well in advance.
We opted to stay at one of the large motels in Tusayan, just a mile south of the south entrance to the park and 6 miles from the rim. Two are rated three-star by the AAA.
Rooms in Tusayan are considerably less expensive than in the park, especially if you want to bed down at the famous El Tovar Lodge, which was built by the Fred Harvey Co., opening in 1905.
Our decision was not just based on price, however. Like when you vacation with kids, you know, they have to stay at a place that has a swimming pool. Like, you know?
There are pools and spas in Tusayan, but not at the lodges in the park, where water is a scarce commodity.
Our proximity to the canyon, however, made it possible for four visits within the 40 hours we were on the scene. Canyon veterans stress that seeing the canyon at different times of day under different lighting and weather conditions should be a top priority.
A perfect conclusion to Day Two was watching the sunset form the Grand Canyon Village and then sampling the charm of the El Tovar Lodge by having dinner there.
Recommendation No. 2: Before visiting in person, see the 30-minute film on the canyon at the IMAX theater in Tusayan.
Some people say the movie is better than the real thing. I wouldn’t go that far, but the film does present some spectacular aerial views of the canyon and also traces the past 4,000 years of history of the area going back to the Anasazi Indians and latter-day discoveries of the area by Spanish explorers and John Wesley Powell’s party in 1869.
The theater is a great jumping-off point, so to speak.
Third and foremost: Sign up for one of the many motor tours offered.
Several carriers in the area offer bus or van trips to the major points of interest.
We selected a Flagstaff-
based tour, and a 14-passenger van picked us up at our motel at 10:30 a.m. and got us back at 5 p.m.
The cost – a little more than $300 for the five of us – was well worth it. Corky, our driver-guide, is a son of one of the early mule train operators in the park and seemed to know every rock and cranny.
Corky’s ongoing commentary provided a wealth of information as we visited most of the main lookout sites on the rim. And he even set up a small telescope to give us close-up looks at several points of interest.
The tour vans and buses get primo parking spots, and the tour eliminated a lot of walking, plus the hassle of our trying to figure out where to go and how to get there.
No one in our group could come up with a question that Corky couldn’t answer.
For instance, I wanted to know if the Colorado River continues to dig a deeper path through the canyon.
He said the Grand Canyon gets about 1 inch deeper every 200 years.
That’s another reason to pay the place a visit now. Wait much longer and the roaring Colorado below could be out of sight.
Dick Hilker, longtime Denver-area newspaperman, lives in Fountain Hills, Ariz.
A word of caution
One important word of caution when visiting the Grand Canyon: Let’s say you’re perched on the rim, holding up a copy of The Denver Post travel section with a gorgeous vista behind you, hoping to get a picture that will get your mug in the paper.
Do not respond to a camera person’s request to “move back a little bit.”
Each year, an average of two or three park visitors lose their lives falling off the edge. They didn’t use common sense while trying to get a closer look or a better photo.
Don’t take chances.
