Advertisement
NORTH RIM OF THE GRAND CANYON
Thursday, May 17th
8:20 and 59 degrees. Starting mileage is 26178. North Rim Campground.
Valerie and I had decided that since both of us had been the South Rim many times, and since neither of us had been to the North Rim, we would visit the North Rim on this trip. Boy, are we glad we did!! What a difference there is in the two sides. The south side approach is covered with desert vegetation whereas the north rim is about 1000 feet higher and covered in forest.
A person could be walking in the forest and just come to the edge of the Canyon with no warning at all. The Park roads run right along the edge of the Canyon so you have great views. On the south side there are only a few overlooks and now you must take a tram to Hermit’s Rest. We drove Rosie all over and could not believe how close the vehicle got to the edge.
First thing this morning we drove to the Grand Canyon Lodge, built of rock in the early 30’s, parked Rosie, and then walked out to
Bright Angel Point. What a view!!!--- and the lodge sits such that you have this view from the dining room and a “sitting room” filled with comfortable chairs to just sit in and look through the floor to ceiling windows. In the lobby that is filled with huge Navajo rugs and other Native art, is a life-size bronze statue of a wild burro/donkey named Brighty . A children’s book based on his life at the North Rim was written in 1953, and he became quite famous. A rub on his nose is supposed to bring good luck
We spent time in the gift shop since a piece of art work caught our attention. After some deliberation, we decided to buy the rock sculpture to remind us of all the red canyons/rocks/buttes that we had been driving through. Hopefully, it will go well in front of my oil painting of the Grand Tetons.
We drove Rosie about 20 miles out on the Walhalla Plateau to various overlooks and ended at Walhalla Overlook where we walked along a level paved trail to see the Angels Window and view the canyon below. On the way there, we had
a sleek coyote cross the road in front of us and then stand in the forest and look us in the eye. On the way back to the junction of the road out of the park , we saw another or the same coyote, staring intently at something in the meadow---afternoon snack perhaps?
Since it was late in the afternoon by the time we finished touring the North Rim, we decided to drive only about 44 miles to Jacob’s Lake and a nice looking BLM campground we had seen on the way in. We spotted about 20 does in the various meadows as we drove along 67. I am glad we stopped early for the night, as by the time we got there; the wind was really blowing and rocking Rosie. The campground host came around and told everyone that because of the wind, there would be NO fires lit that night.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.722s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 9; qc: 51; dbt: 0.274s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb