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!