100 Years Young

December 2008

Clearly, the Grand Canyon is way older than a mere century. However, 2019 does mark the centennial of the establishment of Grand Canyon National Park. How cool to squeeze in a visit during this 100th anniversary year! Our only other trip to the South Rim was a little more than 10 years ago.

Last time, because of all the snow, we weren't able to make it out to the Desert View Watchtower on the eastern side of the park. Yesterday, since we were entering from Cameron and driving west, all of the scenic viewpoints were new to us.

Colorado River from Desert View

Because the skies were overcast, I was a little disappointed that the colors in the canyon appeared to be washed out. Even so, it was still absolutely amazing to stand there on the rim and try to absorb the vastness of it all.

Snow on the ground at Grandview Point

By the time we reached the visitor center, it had already closed for the day. My passport stamp would have to wait. So we walked over to Mather Point instead. 

Afterwards we drove over to Maswik Lodge to check into our room. When we set our itinerary, this was the only lodging still available inside the park. It would have been great to stay right next to the rim, but our room was only a 15-minute walk away. We ate dinner in the cafeteria and then called it an early night, since this had been such a full day for us.

Amazingly, M and J were totally on board with the idea of getting up to see the sunrise this morning. Somehow we all managed to roll out of bed without much prodding and trekked over to the rim in the cold (brrrr!), but the sun never really managed to poke through the gray. Bummer.

We walked along the rim in the Grand Canyon Village Historic District for a bit and then waited for the restaurant at Bright Angel Lodge to open at 7:00AM for breakfast. Hot chocolate, please! By the time we finished eating, the light had gotten a little better...

We headed back to Maswik Lodge to pack up and check out, but left the van parked in front of our room. Taking advantage of the excellent shuttle system, we hopped on the blue bus over to the visitor center. I spent the rest of the morning collecting my passport cancellations from various locations throughout the park. Thankfully, the rest of the fam were good sports about tagging along.

After getting stamps from the visitor center and the bookstore, we took the orange bus out to Yavapai Point. We rode the same bus back and then transferred to a blue bus which would take us to Market Plaza. R and J went shopping for souvenirs, while M and I stamped our books at the park headquarters.

From there, we hiked over to the canyon and then along the Rim Trail to Verkamp's Visitor Center, without realizing how far away it was. I missed the "map not to scale" on the pocket guide - doh! Small price to pay for this view...

Since we still had 500+ miles between us and home, we didn't have time to see the western portion of the park out to Hermit's Rest or to hike below the rim. Hopefully it won't take us another ten years to make it back here!