We continue our tour across the Wild West. If you remember, the last time we were going to the Grand Canyon and almost reached it. There is only the last obstacle — a checkpoint behind which begins a huge national park with the same name. The Colorado River naturally divides canyon into two parts, north and south. This is not just a background information since each part works according to the schedule and in the case of necessity to get there from the other side of the park — won’t be too fast.
Southern part (South Rim) — is open 24/7 all year round. Through the south entrance the park gets 90% of visitors, so here you can see souvenir shops, and restaurants and hotels, and wine and dominoes.
The northern part (North Rim) — receives visitors only from 15 May to 15 October round-the-clock and also from 15 October to 1 December you can visit the park only in the afternoon.
Lifehack for the budget tourist. Checkpoints on the south side do not work late in the evening and at the dawn. We do not hint at anything, but if we knew about it earlier, we would try to save $15 per ticket.
1At the entrance formed a small traffic jam, but the real surprise was the counter-flow of vehicles. We already thought something wrong with the canyon, maybe it was closed for repairs or Colorado River burst its banks. But it turned out that there were just a lot of visitors.
Every year the park is visited by over 4 million tourists, that is about 10 thousand every day. Although the figure seems large, the Canyon has solid size and it is not difficult to find a quiet place for contemplation.
Las Vegas provides the main influx of tourists. Mostly these are the same tired by the variability of Fortune people like us. The local landscape perfectly heals emotional wounds from the loss of several hundred dollars roulette games.
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Altitude is about 2,500 meters and it seems possible to touch the clouds by hand, having jumped like Michael Jordan.
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For the most sensitive were built special rooms, where they can «calm down», and share their emotions.
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You are standing, looking and thinking that the Canyon is not just big, it is huge, immense, grand, stunning. Overall, you are standing and picking up epithets associated with the size. Boring facts say that the length of the canyon is 446 km, width — from 6 to 29 km and depth — 1800 m. Agree that our units system describes canyon more colorful than soulless and rational system SI.
12Here is a look of the canyon from the space. It is clearly visible that the Colorado River and its tributaries have been performing titanic work for several million years. Canyon is growing now also because of erosion. We are on the south side of the park, across the river is the northern part. It is deprived of the attention of tourists, despite its remoteness and inconvenience of the entrance. Although for introverts and misanthropists— it can be a significant advantage. There is a worse situation with facilities but from mid-May to mid-October — you will not perish.
Moreover, the highway 89A, which leads to the northern edge, passes through many interesting places, mostly wineries. Perhaps because of that only 10% of tourists visit the park through the northern entry, others simply can’t arrive.
tripadvisor.com.
On the West, on the lands of Hualapai Indians is situated the most famous viewing platform — Skywalk. It’s a transparent glass horseshoe installed over the precipice. Many people mistakenly think that this is the part of the park, but for visiting the area you have to pay 70 dollars to the chief Cynical Gopher.
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And someone looked at statistics and prefers to stay at safer distances. An active visiting the canyon by tourists began in the early 20th century and since then 685 people have died there. Canyon Rangers found that the main risk factor is youth and male gender.
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Day in the canyon — is a constant change of colors and shades. And the evening a few hours before the sunset — is the most ideal time for photo masterpieces.
17The main attraction of the park — is panoramic views, which really impress. Perhaps fans of dynamic change of atmosphere feel a bit boring here, because they have to gain exposure to see the canyon at different lighting.
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Hiking paths come down by the slopes of the Canyon, they are called «trails». Often this is the way to the bottom… to the bottom of the canyon and Colorado River.
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The tablet offers to dream and look into the past. Somehow it is always so when something is free, you have to dream about something but can’t see or touch it.
26On this poster copywriters became considerably more modest and now we pass through millions, not billions of years, while installations are identical. In general, according to the official version, the history of the canyon began 65 million years ago. Eyewitnesses say that while the Colorado Plateau rose, in result changed the angle of the Colorado River, and it began to destroy the rock that was on its path. First, the river eroded tops limestones, and then the deeper rocks — ancient sandstones and shales. The whole sandwich, in fact, is shown on this monument.
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The weather changes rapidly, the storm is approaching. And with it the colors of the canyon are changing, it is getting delicate violet hues.
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A small tip for beginner photographers. To make spectacular photos in the canyon you should take a picture of some small detail or a small man on the background of it, as on this photograph.
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It seems no one is frightening of potential rain. Not surprisingly, such views make you forget about anything.
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It is enough pictures of the canyon for today. It is becoming dark, and we haven’t found a place to sleep yet, and tomorrow we must get up before the dawn, because if you missed it, the day will be spoiled.
46Of course, you can stay in hotels or camp in the park, but usually, people book a place there a few weeks before the trip. And we did not want to waste cheese and sausage, which we bought in Williams. Therefore, we departed 10 kilometers and found a great place, no bush, and grass in a radius of 300 meters — is completely non-flammable.
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It seems romantic. Starry Sky, fire cracking, and intimate conversations until the morning. Maybe all thoughtful people would have had it. We aren’t that kind of people.
Your look when you bought a sleeping bag for the temperature +20 and in the desert it drops to 0 or below.
51At least, we survived the night. Ranger advised us the best place to meet the dawn and we went there in the morning .
It is intriguing.
52It is cool in the morning in the canyon, but very nice. All tourists are crawling out of their shelters and trying to make as many photos for a small period of time as possible. We also prepared.
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In the meantime, we have a few minutes to look around. On the second day we become bolder and began to approach closer to the cliff. We were so emboldened that almost took pictures of the Colorado River.
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By the way, maybe you have not noticed the horizon, it seemed to be painted with a ruler. These are the remains of flat Colorado Plateau, which were cut through by the same name river, having formed the Great Canyon.
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We had met the dawn on the beach a lot of times, but, frankly speaking, it is more interesting here.
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There are few options. You can walk by trails, cross the bridge over the river and lift up on the opposite slope. But this is a day route, it includes overnight near the Colorado River.
Also from the southern to the northern part of the park you can go by car. It’s faster than on foot, but it takes about three to four hours. The path runs through the 64th, 89th, and 67th lines. It’s possible to cross the Colorado River by car in one place, by bridge Navajo.
One of the paths, leading to the bottom of the canyon.
66Unfortunately, we can not go down this time. Our friend Mario has to work on Monday. But we talked with guys who have just lifted up and realized that the next time we will have overnight near the river.
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