Our travel group included my girlfriend and my cousin and his girlfriend. None of us has had ever been to the Grand Canyon. We only had 1 day to see the south rim so we strategically laid out a route that would allow us to see the most in the least amount of time. I used the online Frommer’s Guide to the Grand Canyon South Rim which you can find here. In order to avoid the crowds we used the Desert View route, essentially seeing the park in reverse. It added a little more drive time to our journey but it was totally worth it. Here was our designed route:
- Leave Casa Grande and head to Flagstaff
- Reach Flagstaff take U.S. 89 north to Ariz. 64 (35.854985, -111.425420), head west
- Desert View Watchtower (36.041202, -111.827064)
- Lipan Point (36.032669, -111.853311)
- Moran Point (36.004880, -111.924005)
- Grandview Point (35.998047, -111.987779)
- Grand Canyon Visitor Center (park and use free shuttle for the rest)
- (Beer Stop)
- Yaki Point (Yellow shuttle)
- Yavapai Point
- Beer Stop @ Yavapai Tavern (Take yellow back to visitor center and use Blue to transfer to red)
- Hopi Point( Must See)
- Mohave Point (Must See)
- Abyss
- Pima Point (Must See)
- Beer stop & Dinner at Bright Angel Lodge
- Take bus back to car (Grand Canyon Visitor Center) and head home
To my travel companions this was a bit overkill. They teased me for planning meticulously but when I travel I want to see everything. I admit it borders on the extreme at times. Are the exact coordinates a bit much? Possibly, but I didn’t want to waste any time driving in the wrong direction. I also got a little criticism for the lack of food and drinks in my first draft so I had to add-in a couple of beer stops which I was happy to include.
There are a ton of viewpoints throughout the park and many of them are close together which doesn’t actually change your perspective all that much. In order to get the most bang for our buck in terms of time, the viewpoints on the above plan are the most diverse views of the canyon.
Our first stop was the Desert View Watchtower. This was my personal favorite. I don’t know if this is because it is was my first glimpse of this natural wonder or that I had just spent 4 hours in a car. Either way, my jaw dropped to the floor as I stood in awe of the canyon. I never anticipated the variety of colors and the sheer size of it all, it was almost sensory overload. It’s hard to really put the scale of it into words. You look down at this sliver of water that carved what lies in front of you, and you just think to yourself this can’t be real.
As we followed the plan and jumped from viewpoint to viewpoint, I never tired of the spectacle. Daylight was quickly diminishing as we made it the visitor center. We had to switch up our itinerary to get in the must-see stops before nightfall. If you start to run short on time go straight to Hopi Point, Mohave Point, and Pima Point. There are free shuttles in the park that will take you to all of these.
If you have a healthy love of the outdoors you will truly appreciate this national treasure. When you return home your pictures may begin to appear too similar as you try to decipher which stop it was but being there and remembering every little detail of the rocks and how the sun illuminates different sections of the canyon, you will yearn to go back. My goal was to cross this off my bucket list. By the end of the trip I had actually added to the list. I have added to my list to return to the Grand Canyon and backpack rim to rim. One day at the park was just not enough for me and I cannot wait to return.
Bonus:
Chad can be summed up by his idea of a perfect day: Waking up early to watch the sunrise over the mountains, warm cup of coffee in hand then grabbing his camera and fly rod, hitting the trail to explore some uncharted territory followed by cold beers and campfire steaks. Chad is often joined on his adventures by his wife, Tori, and their dog, Kona.