Yesterday I put Apollo in doggy daycare and we spent all day at the Canyon, hiking and exploring and taking our time.
First we saw the IMAX movie, which was definitely worth the time and $10/per.
Then on to the Canyon. We wanted to watch the sunset from Hopi Point and take the shuttle down to Hermit's Rest, and I wanted to hike the Bright Angel Trail, so we made our game plan accordingly. Parked in the Village and hiked the Bright Angel, which is about 10 miles at a 10% average grade (we only did a little bit of it) and ends up at
Phantom Ranch:
Then we walked the Rim to the Market Plaza to pick up lunch:
Grand Canyon has four distinct areas:
Visitor's Center, which is where most people start.
Market Plaza, where the workers live. There's a grocery store, a bank, post office, living quarters, etc.
Grand Canyon Village, where the hotels and restaurants are.
Hermit's Rest, which is WAY out west, about an 80 minute shuttle ride roundtrip.
And of course there are a bunch of points along the way. You can walk the Rim Trail the whole way (13 miles from South Kaibab to Hermit's Rest) but there are shuttle buses that take you all over the place. What we found, though, is that there are eastbound and southbound buses, and they don't both stop at each point and not each point has restroom facilities. For example:
The plan was to take the shuttle all the way out to Hermit's Rest, ooh and ahh, then back to Hopi Point to watch the sunset. Then we learned the ride to Hermit's Rest would take over half an hour, then that same back. And we learned that Hopi Point doesn't have an eastbound shuttle to get us back - you have to hike about a mile to Mohave Point to catch the bus. But while Hopi Point has a restroom, Mohave Point does not.
So it became complicated, and what we ended up doing is making sure we were well drained, then took the shuttle to Mohave Point, watched most of the sunset (and rainstorms in the distance at Hermit's Point, where we would have been drenched if we'd gone with our original plan):
NoAZ, especially Williams/Grand Canyon, has a disproportionate number of steak houses because foreign tourists love them - they don't have real steak houses back home and it's uniquely American and cowboy to them. We normally don't hit up steak houses because we grill at home and when we eat out it's something we can't get just anywhere. But I wanted to do a tourist steak house, so we ended up at
Big E's in Tusayan. Big ass steaks in a westerny setting that wasn't over the top - those Japanese tourists should feel like they got their experience. Patio seating on a pleasant evening.
Our campground is a resort with great amenities, across the street from Grand Canyon Brewery, and a couple blocks walk to downtown.
