Grand Canyon Arizona

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Grand Canyon, I think its one of the most visited national park after the smoky mountains. For me this was one of the place I always wanted to visit since the day one I came to USA. Finally I got chance to visit the place in the month of September. Yes you are right the climate was hot but not as much as the summer months. Actually it was the extended trip from Las Vegas where we visited first before grand canyon. From Vegas you can do a day trip to the grand canyon and that's what most of the people prefer. We also planned similarly but the difference was instead of returning back to Vegas we continued further ahead to the Phoenix city.

Grand canyon can be traveled from four directions east, west, south and north. South rim is the most famous one and easily approachable by road and yes you are right we took the same direction to visit the grand canyon. Make a proper plan before you visit there. Be sure what you want to do, camping or just visit the canyon. We just wanted to visit the canyon so dint took any camping accessories with us. For staying either you can book some hotels inside the perimeters of the south rim or the nearest city of the Williams from where the drive is of approx one hour and quite scenic one. We stayed in some hotel in Williams and then traveled to the south rim. The entry fee is some 30$, Pay it and then visit the canyon from south side.

The south rim has some four parkings, park any where and begin your tour. In case you don't get the parking go to Tusyan village to park the vehicle. South rim has a very good bus service all around. Start your journey from the visitor center. There are four bus routes and the one which will help you in visiting the grand canyon is the orange route. The three others will be for visiting the Tusayan village or for the hotels inside the south rim or for food plazas etc.

Take the orange route bus and start your tour. Make sure you are full stomach in the scorching heat. Start the trip from Hermit's point where you can have complete view of the grand canyon. Take the south Kaibab trail route. Once you reach the Kaibab stop you can start your hiking. From there you can have hiking of different lengths as per your capacity, plans and group. The hiking of around 6 mile is from top to the colorado river at the bottom, for this you need to camp down there and return the other day. Its not recommended to return the same day as it will be risky and may cause in serious fatigue, illness and deaths. I dint had the time otherwise I would have gone down there and camped and returned back the other day. Anyway we took the hiking till the "ooh AAh point" which is a round trip of around 1.75 miles. If you want to go to the skeleton point that is to the bottom most point of the grand canyon you can also take the mules service.

After the hiking we stopped at the other stop points of the route to have amazing photographs and see the canyon from top. After returning to the visitor center you can take the other bus route of the Tusyan vilage for the food. always keep water with you as the temperature is high in the canyons even in the month of September.

Have a nice trip..

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