North Rim, day 4: Grand Canyon Lodge, Bright Angel Point, and Point Sublime

Grand Canyon Lodge: We started this day by going back into the Park, filling up the Jeep with the cheap gas (they still had last year's gas at last year's prices!), and checking with the visitor center to make sure the road to Point Sublime was open - it is a four-wheel-drive road out to another viewpoint we wanted to visit. Then we went over to the Grand Canyon Lodge to see about dinner reservations and check out the old rustic style building and views. The Lodge is designed so it will be the visitor's first view of the canyon. When you drive to the North Rim, you don't see canyon views like you do at the south rim - they are hidden by trees and the road is in the center of the promontory, not on the rim. The Lodge is at the end of the road, and when you enter it, you are greeted with huge picture windows affording you your first good view of the Grand Canyon. Quite the entrance!! It's a neat old lodge, with many similarities to the Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite - dark timbers, stonework, craftsman style lighting, and native-inspired designs. But its grandeur takes a back seat always to the Canyon itself, naturally, and also by architectural design. The huge two-story windows in the sun room and dining room make sure of that! There are two patio areas on either side of the sunroom, and trails below leading to viewpoints, including Bright Angel Point.

Bright Angel Point: Devin waited on the patio while I hiked down to the points below the Lodge and out to Bright Angel Point - lots of neat bonsai'd trees growing in the rocks along the trail caught my admiration. There were lots of people on the trail, yet at the same time, so many less than on the South Rim. There was a certain camaraderie among us - a willingness to chat and laugh with strangers and share admiring comments. I met a French couple and we talked about coffee and travels for a bit, and a couple of guys were sitting on top of boulders out at Bright Angel Point - laughing about how they were having a macho moment after having "conquered" the paved trail out there. On the way back, I caught this couple in a classic "tourist" pose!

Sometimes the people are the best part;
I call this: "Blondie and Dagwood go to the Grand Canyon"
More Lodge and Bright Angel Point Photos

When I got back, it was lunchtime, and we decided to cancel our dinner reservation (the earliest they had was for 8:45, anyway, after dark) and have lunch instead. Typical park food - okay but not great, spotty service, but great views!!! We then had to find ice for the roast turkey sandwiches I'd made us for lunch (since we weren't going to eat them now), and we were off to our Point Sublime adventure.

Point Sublime: The point isn't advertised on signs - the road that leads to it is only marked with "Widforss Trailhead" which leaves from a parking lot about 1/2 mile in. After that, it just says "primitive road" and we didn't expect it to be a real four-wheel drive road. After all, in Joshua Tree, they call the Geology Tour Road a 4wd road, and it really isn't - it's just a dirt road with some bumpy spots. But the Point Sublime Road soon proved itself to be the genuine article, as we maneuvered over large rocks and deep ruts and "whoops" in the road, up and down steep hills, through very fine silt across meadows, and through some lovely scenery in the 18 mile, two hour drive out to the point. About 1/2 way in was a side road to a camp spot and view of the Canyon up a side canyon, and another side road that lead out to Fire Point and Swamp Point - those points have access roads from the National Forest and we could potentially take that road "home" to our campsite in the Forest! But it was going to be too late when we returned, so we'll have to save that exploration for another time.

When you are approaching Point Sublime, it's very obvious as you begin driving out onto a peninsula of rock separated from its neighbors by deepening chasms. At one point, the road passes over a narrow neck with canyon views on both sides before you get to the top of the ridge and drive right out to the point! We didn't see a single car on the way out there - Saturday in late May in a National Park - imagine! But there were two other cars out at the point -- a Hummer and an FJ Cruiser. So we completed the set of major 4WD vehicles with our Jeep Wrangler! The Hummer belonged to a couple from Switzerland who were out on the very point taking photos. The FJ belonged to some apparently anti-social people who really had wanted the place all to themselves, I'm guessing.

The views from the point were incredible, and yes, it lived up to its name. As the sun went lower, the light just kept getting better and better, and it was hard not to keep taking photos of the same things as each time you looked they seemed more beautiful than before. Again, words won't describe it like photos can!

More photos of Point Sublime

On the way back, we came across a flock of wild turkeys in one of the many large meadows! At first we thought they were deer, as from a distance we could see large animals moving through the grass, but they moved funny, and were darker... as we got closer we saw what they were and took photos and a couple of movies, but since it was quite low light, most came out fairly blurry (especially since the turkeys kept moving rather quickly, too). A nice wildlife sighting to end another adventurous day!

North Rim - day 3: East Rim, Point Imperial, Cape Royal and Angel's Window

East Rim: Starting fresh the next day, we drove the Jeep out of the forest, across the paved road, and back into the forest on the other side to check out the East Rim Viewpoint - that is where the people in the Park Visitor Center had suggested we go. There were LOTS of campsites along this, much shorter, road, and as we got out, even some with views of the canyon! But we weren't going to waste another day moving to a new campsite, and most of these were taken or on roads that the RV wouldn't have made it down. One was definitely a 4wd access road, and had a great campsite at the end with a trail out to a rock overlook of the East Rim - nice!

Point Imperial: Next we drove into the Park and out to Point Imperial - I almost crashed the Jeep when suddenly we had this amazing view open up on the side of the road!! Devin kept saying, "Don't Look!" Ha. At Point Imperial, we realized why this part is a National Park, and the other parts are National Forest. These views are much more spectacular and breath-taking. MUCH more! Most of the Forest views were of side canyons or much farther from the main gorge, and the Park views were like IMAX compared to a home video. Wow!

At Point Imperial, I met a couple and started talking to them about the helicopter we saw in the canyon (no doubt "flightseeing" from the south rim). Turns out the man, Glen, was hiking in the Grand Canyon years ago, doing a long North to South Rim in one day hike, when he came across a man with a helicopter, almost at the bottom. There was a little bit of movie set left, and only this one man, and they'd finished filming for the day, "Brighty of the Grand Canyon"! The man offered Glen a free helicopter ride out of the canyon! He said it was the hardest choice he'd ever made - his heart was set on hiking North to South Rim in a day, but he'd never been on a helicopter before! He chose to complete his hike. Another woman who was listening to the story said he'd made the right choice, because he couldn't do that hike today, but he could take a helicopter ride. He'd just had a hip replacement recently, but I think he may take a few more hikes after it heals. He said his only helicopter ride was in Alaska, going to the Beaufort Sea, flying over pingos (round, ice-heaved hills) - a very surreal landscape. Sounds like he's had an adventurous life, so I suspect there is more adventure to come. But maybe not rim-to-rim hikes.

Angel's Window and Cape Royale: We then drove out to Cape Royale, that has a wheelchair accessible path. I had checked with the visitor center and they said the Segway would be okay to use on this paved path as well. The visitor center loans out wheelchairs for people to take out there if they are not able to walk far, also. Of course, the Segway got a lot of attention, and we spoke to many folks who were very interested in one for themselves or a relative with a disability. We met a woman with Cerebral Palsy out at the main viewpoint who was very interested and Devin even gave her a demo. We seem to be ambassadors for Segway and Jeep wherever we go - ha.

On the way out to the main viewpoint, a wonderful surprise awaited us! There is a narrow promontory of Kaibab Limestone that juts out into the canyon, that has a very large triangular opening in it! It makes a natural bridge, and through the opening, you can see the rose-hued Canyon walls beyond, and in the right viewpoint, the Colorado River. This is Angel's Window, and I'd never heard of it nor seen pictures and it was awe- inspiring! Not only that, but there was a path out onto the top of it, over the bridge and to the very edge! Wow. We decided we had to have a photo of one of us standing out there on it from this viewpoint! But first we went on to the main viewpoint of Cape Royale.

Words can't describe the beauty of these Grand Canyon views, so pictures will have to suffice:

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North Rim - Days 1 and 2 (May 16-17, 2007)

Journey to the North Rim: The next day, we rolled in the awning, put away the chairs and battened down the hatches of our rolling home once again to head for the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. At the NPS dump station at Lee's Ferry, we saw a cool Horned Lizard that seemed to live there - watched it eat ants and do threatening push-ups toward us while we dumped our waste tanks and attempted to fill our fresh water tank.

They had a fresh water hose that works with the type of fill valves that open upwards, that you can just pour water into without pressure. Our fill valve opens to the side, and requires a hose with pressure and a threaded fitting. We had purchased a device called a "Water Thief" for just this sort of situation - it has a rubber sleeve to fit over non-threaded faucets on one side and a threaded hose fitting on the other. This was our first time trying it, and we discovered it can't take much pressure!! The NPS water valve was a lever that was either all the way on, or off, unless you held it manually somewhere in between. After a few attempts and Maggie getting thoroughly wet as the hoses burst apart and whipped wildly around, we learned that we need a hose clamp to make it work well at pressure! We finally figured that if one of us held the hose thief on with both hands (the type of clamps we had didn't work) and the other held the pressure just right, it wouldn't burst open and we could, slowly but surely, fill our tank. This was important as we expected to be dry camping for the next week! Before we were done, Devin looked like he was on the losing end of a water balloon fight - yay! Thank goodness it was hot there and that made it refreshing.

The drive past the Vermillion Cliffs and up the Kaibab Plateau was beautiful, and a study in life zones as we passed from desert scrub to pinyon-juniper woodlands to mixed conifer yellow pine and oak to fir and aspen forests and meadows at the top.

Arriving at the North Rim - hopeful expectations and sad realizations: Opening day was yesterday, May 15th - the road from Jacob Lake to the North Rim is closed until then, and the park doesn't open until the road opens officially. We knew the campground in the Park was full, because we had checked online where you have to reserve now, and there has been nothing for a while. A day here and day there, but no two days in a row anywhere. I wish they set aside a certain percentage of their sites for first come, first served, but now all the National Parks are on this ReserveAmerica or Recreation.gov sites, and you can reserve your campsites a year in advance - and it's specific by campsite, too!! So the few sites that are right on the rim with views are all booked up early, of course. Even so, we hoped there may be a cancellation we could capitalize upon. But we weren't counting on it, so we stopped in Jacob Lake at the Kaibab National Forest Visitor Center and got a forest map, found out about dispersed camping in the forest and some suggested sites with canyon views, and headed down the road.

We first went to into the Park and the Visitor Center to check about possible camping cancellations. We got our first peek through the trees of the Grand Canyon from the North Rim here, just walking along the parking lot to the Visitor Center. There we got more information about dispersed camping in the National Forest and some more suggested spots, then went to the campground to talk to the "Rangers in a box" at the entrance. They had just checked 10 minutes before for cancellations for the whole next week, and there were none. But they waxed eloquent about the great free camping on the National Forest with campsites right on the rim, so we headed back out to the forest.

With all this encouragement, and our dream of camping right on the rim of the Grand Canyon, we headed out to either Timp Point or Parissawampitts Point, where there were supposed to be fantastic panoramic views (according to our book of free campgrounds, too) and campsites all along the rim, and the road in was described as a "good gravel road." Okay, don't believe everything you read! It may have been a good gravel road for a car or truck, but for a 9 ton class A RV with 90 psi tires, it was a torture device designed to shake apart our home!! Washboard, even little washboard, is very hard in the RV, and there were some sections of BIG washboard on this road. Devin was driving 5 to 10 mph and having to slow down when we came to potholes and such. Over twenty miles of this was pretty stressful, to say the least. So we unhooked at the junction of Timp and North Timp points and drove down to decide which one.

Well, North Timp had a road that was do-able, but only a couple of appropriate campsites, with only very partial views on one or two, through lots of trees, and they were all taken already! Timp had a road that was NOT doable because of low tree branches and narrow spots, and one pretty nice campsite available, but we couldn't get there. This was very disappointing after being told by everyone that there were lots of places to camp and no one would be there and it was right on the rim. People exaggerate.

We drove back out to the washboarded "main" road we had come down, and went up toward Parissawampitts Point, but decided not to try it tonight, and found a campsite off a side road that wasn't being used, in a clearing that was probably an old "borrow pit" where they got the gravel for the "good gravel roads." It was nice to camp in the forest, with aspens all around, deer wandering through, and all, but it wasn't what we'd hoped for, and we were going to have to move the next day. We had wanted to find our camp site, and stay put for a while, relaxing there and also using it as a base for exploring further.

North Rim day 2 - finding a "real" campsite: The next day we kept the Jeep unhooked and I scouted ahead. We parked the RV again at the turn off to Parissawampitts, and it was about the same. Some nice campsites, but basically all taken, and no really clear views, and the road was much rougher than we wanted to drive down. So we decided to head back out to near the beginning of this forest road and camp closer to the paved road and park, and give up on the idea of a campsite with a view of the Grand Canyon. We found a nice campsite just 2.5 miles from pavement, in our own little clearing on a ridge surrounded by aspens and nice views of the sunset. We have our own herd of deer that seem to use the aspen thicket to bed down in at night, and there are lots of birds singing all the time. So it's a nice spot and a good location to use as a base camp to explore from.

Lesson learned: Next time we hear about great campsites down a dirt road, we'll unhook and check them out with the Jeep first! The Moho is not for driving down dirt or gravel roads - the Moho is our home, and we can park it nearby and explore and have adventures in the Jeep - that's what it's for! "Adventures" in the motorhome are not the kind we really like having... usually involving flat tires and things breaking. The idea of getting stuck way out on these forest roads was really was affecting both of our ability to enjoy being here. So we re-grouped, started over after two days of finding a campsite, and now we are ready to explore the North Rim.

This is really a beautiful forest, with huge meadows, aspens just leafing out, pines and firs, and we've seen lots of deer, Kaibab Squirrels (really cute black squirrels with tasseled ears and a white tail - we both thought it was a skunk when we first saw one!), Chickarees, bunnies, lots of birds, a coyote, and a flock of wild turkeys! We haven't seen any bears yet , or bison, which apparently have wandered up here now from the House Rock Wildlife Station down below the plateau. So now we can appreciate the Kaibab National Forest for what it is, and enjoy the North Rim of the Grand Canyon as well.