Trip Report
After hanging out in the Las Vegas area and visiting the Valley of Fire and the Hoover Dam area, we headed to the Grand Canyon.
We stayed at an Elvis themed room in Segilman, Arizona. Seligman is a town on Route 66 that is full of old cars, Route 66 gift shops, and nice people; it was a lot of fun.
The next morning we both got our first views of the Grand Canyon. It was a beautiful sunny day, albeit it a bit cold from time-to-time. We started by driving the rim east and hitting all of the observation points until we reached Desert View. The peak bagger in me got us a few points that normal tourists would probably not even know about, including a bump near Desert View Lookout that has 300 feet of prominence and Grandview Benchmark. Grandview Benchmark was only about a mile off the rim road, so it was an easy side trip. It was actually kind of fun to climb up the airy stairs to the wobbly, 100-foot lookout tower. The view from the lookout took in quite a chunk of land with the Grand Canyon visible on one side and Humphreys Peak near Flagstaff on the other.
I particularly enjoyed Moran Point as far as stops on the rim road go, with Desert View being a close second. We both were surprised that not that many people were out and about.
After our fun on the east side, we headed to the Grand Canyon Village, visiting Mather Point and Yavapi Point. The crowds in this main area are crazy. Our feeling of "not that many people" was gone for sure. The trick, just avoid the main village area.
To catch the sunset, we headed back east. Fearing we were going to miss it, I just pulled off the road and we jumped out of the car and started hiking up a closed road. Turns out we had over a mile to get to the canyon. We kind of missed the sunset, but had a fun (cold) hike out to Shoshone Point.
|
|
