The North Rim of the Grand Canyon National Park, AZ…

We actually enjoyed our first stay in a Walmart parking lot , not because of the great site but because we needed to get groceries, be close to Antelope Canyon and we needed somewhere to stay the night! Thanks, Walmart for letting us use your parking lot. One night was all we needed so the next the morning we drove over to Fredonia Arizona.

We pulled into the “no frills” but very reasonable Wheel Inn RV Park. We got up and just chilled the rest of the day enjoying the high speed internet at the park. The next morning we were off and running as we headed south for a long driving day to visit yet another bucket list place. Our target was the North Rim of the Grand Canyon National Park.

We had been to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon but not the north. The drive to the North Rim was long but very scenic as there were many glimpses of the golden leaves of Aspen here and there. Once we pulled into the visitor center parking lot we headed down a the Bright Angel Trail.

Wow, wow and wow… the views everywhere were spectacular. We hiked down the trail knowing full well that we had no intention of going to the bottom. It was very chilly (temps in the low 50’s) and the wind was gusting upwards to 40 mph knocking my hat off a few times.

 

There were lots of nice spots to pull off the trail to take the obligatory photos. We surely were enjoying ourselves as we turned back toward the North Rim Lodge. Just below the lodge we discovered a viewing room where I took a perfectly framed photo of the canyon (header picture). After soaking it all in we went up the steps to the lodge and sat in the Adirondack chairs outside to again to enjoy the panoramic views.

The lodge itself is pretty cool and worth a look. There was a long line waiting for the restaurant to open but we planned to have lunch at a another viewpoint of the canyon. We found a perfect place to have lunch and afterward took a short hike to another viewpoint. Between the sunlight on the canyon and the different contours on the canyon walls it seemed as though we were seeing a different canyon every time we shifted our eyes.

We decided on the way back to take some backroads to see some of the more out of the way overlooks. However, between the wind and an ever present fire on the North Rim our plans were thwarted. We met up with a fire official who warned us of several overlook closures and  I told him of a road with a tree down. We decided between the two of us we could probably pull the tree out of the road and so we did.

Hoping that we could see another overlook we set off down this road. Once again we were denied so we decided to just follow the dirt road back into Fredonia. While we missed out on on some other overlooks we did enjoy the slow drive back to town…

NOTE: We are currently near St George UT for a while, then on towards Nevada…