The Rough Guide to The Grand Canyon 1 (Rough Guide Travel Guides) - Softcover

Ward, Greg

Softcover

ISBN 10: 184353052X ISBN 13: 9781843530527

Publisher: Rough Guides, 2003

Synopsis

INTRODUCTION

Although almost five million people come to see the Grand Canyon of the Colorado every year, it seems to remain beyond the grasp of the human imagination. No photograph, no set of statistics, can prepare you for such overwhelming vastness. At more than one mile deep, it’s an inconceivable abyss; varying in its central stretch from four to eighteen miles wide, it’s an endless expanse of bewildering shapes and colors, glaring desert brightness and impenetrable shadow, stark promontories and soaring never-to-be-climbed sandstone pinnacles.

While no one is disappointed with their first stunning sight of the chasm, visitors often find themselves struggling to understand what can appear as a remote and impassive spectacle. They race frantically from viewpoint to viewpoint, constantly imagining that the next one will be the "best," the place from which the whole thing finally makes sense. This book is an attempt to guide you beyond that initial anxiety. More than anything, it’s aimed at encouraging you to slow down, to appreciate whatever small portion of the canyon may be displayed in front of you at any one moment, and to allow enough time for the bigger picture to develop. You don’t have to learn the names of all those buttes and mesas – dubbed Shiva Temple, Wotan’s Throne and so on in a spate of late-Victorian fervor – and you may not ever be able to identify all the different rock strata or desert plants. The longer you spend at the canyon, however, the greater the chance that you will start to hear it speak.

Back in the 1920s, the average visitor would stay at the canyon for two or three weeks. These days, two or three hours is more typical, of which perhaps forty minutes are spent actually looking at the canyon. That’s partly because most people now arrive by car. As the only part of the canyon you can reach in a car is the rim, seeing the canyon has thus come to mean seeing it from above, from a distance. If you really want to engage with the canyon, however, you need literally to get into it – to hike or ride a mule down the many inner-canyon trails, to sleep in the backcountry campgrounds or in the cabins at Phantom Ranch on the canyon floor, to raft through the whitewater rapids of the river itself.

Mapping and defining precisely what constitutes the "Grand Canyon" has always been controversial; Grand Canyon National Park covers a relatively small proportion of the greater Grand Canyon area. Only since 1975 has the park included the full 277-mile length of the Colorado River from Lees Ferry in the east to Grand Wash Cliffs near Lake Mead in the west, and even now for most of that distance it’s restricted to the narrow strip of the inner gorge. Ranchers whose animals graze in the federal forests to either side, mining companies eager to exploit the mineral wealth hidden in the ancient rocks, engineers seeking to divert the river to feed the deserts of southern Arizona, and Native Americans who have lived in the canyon since long before the first Europeans reached North America, have combined to minimize the size of the park.

The vast majority of visitors arrive at the South Rim – it’s much easier to get to, there are far more facilities (mainly at Grand Canyon Village, inside the park), and it’s open all year round. Another lodge and campground are located at the North Rim, which by virtue of its isolation can be a lot more atmospheric, but at a thousand feet higher this entire area is usually closed by snow from mid-October until mid-May. On both rims, the main activity for most visitors consists of gazing over the gorge from overlooks placed at strategic intervals along the canyon-edge roads. Both also serve as the starting points for countless hiking trails down into the canyon, and it’s even possible to hike all the way from one to the other, along the so-called Corridor Trails, which takes a minimum of two days from rim to rim.

Simply to drive from one rim to the other takes 215 miles, while to complete a loop around the entire national park would require you to drive almost eight hundred miles, and pass as far west as Las Vegas, Nevada. Even that long haul would miss out several of the most interesting detours in the greater Grand Canyon region, into the baffling checkerboard of federal, state, Indian and private lands that lies beyond the boundaries of the park. These include several national monuments, including two huge ones created in 2000, Vermilion Cliffs and Grand Canyon–Parashant; a couple of national recreation areas at either end, Glen Canyon and Lake Mead; two sections of the Kaibab National Forest, north and south of the river; and four neighboring Indian reservations, belonging to the Havasupai, the Hualapai, the Kaibab Paiute and the Navajo. While most (though not quite all) provide recreational possibilities for visitors, detailed throughout this book, few offer any kind of accommodation or other facilities. For that, you need to call in instead at the many gateway towns on all sides of the canyon, from Flagstaff and Williams in the south, to Kanab in the north.

About this title

About the Author

Greg Ward is an established travel writer and expert on the islands of Hawaii. He has worked for Rough Guides since 1985. He is the author of The Rough Guide to Barcelona (with Steve Tallantyre), The Rough Guide to Brittany and Normandy, and The Rough Guide to Southwest USA. Visit him online at gregward.info.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

CLIMATE

The climate at the Grand Canyon varies with both the season and the altitude. Although most people picture the canyon as being in barren desert, in fact both the north and south rims are set in cool, high forests. The North Rim, the higher of the two at eight thousand feet, receives so much snow that it’s completely cut off all winter, typically between late October and early May. Nights there remain distinctly chilly at the start and end of each season, and only between June and August do normal daytime temperatures rise above 70°F (21°C).

The South Rim is a thousand feet lower, which makes enough of a difference for the visitor facilities to remain open year-round. Temperatures still drop well below freezing at night between late October and April, however, so driving conditions can be treacherous, with occasional road closures, and the upper portions of hiking trails may be dangerously icy. Only between May and September can you expect daytime highs above 70°F (21°C).

The Inner Canyon is a very different proposition. At river level, almost five thousand feet below the South Rim, thermometer readings in excess of 100°F (38°C) are recorded on most days between late May and early September, and it’s unlikely to drop below 70°F (21°C) even at night. Winter temperatures are a little cooler than you might expect, because so little direct sun manages to reach the bottom of the canyon, but it very seldom freezes down there, and December highs remain well over 50°F (10°C).

Precipitation is seldom severe enough to spoil a visit; the greatest risk of heavy rain comes in August, when afternoon thunderstorms sweep in (and can create localized flash floods), but they’re spectacular to watch and normally blow over fast. However, it has to be said that at any time of year you may turn up and find the canyon invisible beneath a layer of cloud or fog, a problem exacerbated by the sulfurous emissions pumped out by the Navajo Generating Station, seventy miles upriver at Page.

WHEN TO GO

There’s no definitive answer as to which is the best season to visit. Summer on the South Rim can be murderously crowded and, for hikers especially, uncomfortably hot, so if you have the choice, and you plan to spend a lot of time out on the trails, spring and fall are preferable. That’s less of an issue on the North Rim, which receives far fewer visitors, and stays significantly cooler. In winter, the scope for outdoor activities is greatly reduced, and the North Rim is closed altogether, but the South Rim is transformed into a haven of peace and tranquility. In terms of aesthetics, the canyon can look radiant, flecked with snow, on a crisp winter’s day; alive with color when the cactuses and wildflowers blossom in the spring; and suffused with a golden glow in fall, as the trees close to rim level start to turn.

WHAT TO BRING

Whatever time of year you visit, you can expect to need warm clothing, especially for the evenings, and something waterproof to keep off sudden rains. Temperatures vary so much, and so rapidly, that it makes sense to dress in layers. Detailed advice on what to bring if you’re hiking appears on p.210, and if you’re rafting on p.253. Otherwise, if you’re touring by car, and just sightseeing without strenuous physical activity, no specialist equipment is necessary. Be sure, however, that you have adequate protection from the sun, including a broad-brimmed hat, sunblock and sunglasses.

About this edition

• Publisher: Rough Guides
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 184353052X
• ISBN 13: 9781843530527
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 336