The long drive from Vegas to the Grand Canyon was my parents' first taste of life on the road in the RV. Mum seemed to settle into it particularly quickly. Having claimed a spot next to the window where she could watch like a true lady of leisure as the outside world flew by, it wasn't long before she mastered the fine art of pouring a glass of wine while the RV bounced and swerved its way around the potholes of the Great American Freeway.
Although travelling with us, they weren't staying with us in the RV at this point, so after a solid six hour slog we dropped them off at their hotel near the entrance to the Grand Canyon, went to find our campground and met up again the following morning.
The Grand Canyon is a national park like any other that we've visited, basically meaning that it's all enclosed within a specific, marked (and obviously, in this case, huge) protected area. There's a loop road that takes you to many points of interest within the park boundary, with a couple of gates leading in and out.
The Grand Canyon park area is divided into two: the north rim and south rim. Bear in mind that we're talking about a 277 mile-long, 18 mile wide hole in the ground here, so you can't just decide which side you want to visit when you get there. The north rim is usually closed through winter anyway - the higher elevation leads to much more snowfall - so we already knew we were heading for the south.
We parked in one of the visitor centre car parks and jumped on a shuttle bus that would take us seven miles along the south rim to the "Hermit's Rest" viewpoint, stopping at several others along the way.
Our first stop was Trailview Overlook, our first real chance to gawp at the overwhelming spectacle of sheer scale before us. This is also the starting point for the Bright Angel trail which descends 3000 ft into the canyon. It's a fair trek (12 mile round trip) so we didn't attempt it in the time that we had, deciding instead to try and see more of the upper edge of the rim.
We walked on to Maricopa Point and The Powell Memorial, the latter commemorating Major John Powell and his crew's exploratory expeditions down the Colorado River in the late 19th century.
Onto Hopi Point, with some more amazing views across to the north rim. This is one of the most popular viewpoints for watching the sun rise and set because of its wide vistas.
Mohave Point gave us our first glimpse of the Colorado River way below:
Forged over time by a combination of water and wind erosion, continental drift and other factors, the Canyon is basically a geologist's wet dream. Its walls expose several layers and eras of perfectly preserved ancient rock, some dating back over a billion years. The Abyss viewpoint provides an almost vertical view down into the basin.
We stopped at a few more imaginatively-christened lookout points, alternating between using the shuttle and walking, before reaching our final destination, Hermit's Rest. Time to grab a coffee before heading back to the RV.
At the risk of sounding blasé about something that's devoted millions of years to securing its place as one of the seven wonders of the world, by the time we reached Hermit's Rest I kind of felt like I'd seen more than enough! Don't get me wrong, this is one epic hole in the ground and it's incredible to be able to look back in time by gazing into that huge chasm. But as someone who would probably tend to describe the rocky canyon walls as "red" and "grey", rather than "Paleozoic" and "Precambian", I struggled to see much variation in the sights at each respective viewpoint. I was much more captivated by the almost alien colours and shapes on display at Bryce Canyon, for example.
I suppose I'm probably missing the point - you can't reasonably expect a single entity of this magnitude to look all that different at each end of a mere seven mile stretch. If I went back I would definitely tackle the Bright Angel trail. I hear the views are great and heading down into the canyon would obviously offer a much different perspective. I imagine sunrise or sunset over the canyon would also be an impressive thing to witness!
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