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.