16.04 - Day 92 - Vegas to Grand Canyon
Tuesday 16th April - Las Vegas, Nevada - Grand Canyon, Arizona (Day 92)
An early alarm at the Ahern Hotel as we have four National Parks to cover in the next eight days and we’re returning to two meals a day self catered, so by 6:30 am I’m walking into a Walmart to stock up on food, snacks and drinks. By 8:30 am we’re checking out and soon leaving Vegas in our rear view mirror for the 280 mile drive to the Grand Canyon.
After 45 minutes on the freeway we pull into a car park at the edge of the snappily named Mike O’Callaghen - Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge (the former a “popular” governor, the later a sportsman who quit to enlist in the army and was killed in Afghanistan).
A short climb and walk out along the bridge reveals the enormous Hoover Dam. A stomach turning distance below is the water that has passed through the dam providing electricity for thousands. Rising up from the seemingly trickle of water is the concrete arched dam almost 100 years old - feels like we are re-visiting GCSE Geography.
Back in the car for another hour, gently veering through mountains before turning to open plainlands we stop for our first charge at Kingman. Through luck this is a strip of Route 66 just off the highway which the kids recognise from Cars, the Pixar movie. Which means there is a bit here including a visitor centre and Route 66 museum and diner.
Within 40 minutes the car is charged and we’re fed and watered and we drive on for another hour and a half, stopping at Ash Fork for lunch on a picnic table outside another Route 66 museum. It’s mid 20 degrees, warm in the sun but with a chilly breeze in the shade. The kids get a wooden nickel of Arizona Route 66 to add to their Junior Rangers collection and we’re off again on the I40, turning north at Williams on the 64, stopping at the small town of Tuyusan for another charge of the car and then it’s just 10 minutes into the National Park, utilising our America The Beautiful pass rather than the $35 entrance fee.
We head straight to the Information Centre for Sienna and Seb to get their next Junior Ranger booklet. When we approach the edge of the canyon my mouth drops at the sight. On the drive we’d climbed up to 6,000 feet (2,100 metres), and now some 1.6km below is the Colorado River, though it’s so far down we can’t see it from this vantage point. We’re on the South Rim, the North Rim is 28 miles away. The sheer scale of it, combined with the multitude of varying colours of layered rock exposed by the six million years of erosion by the river is spectacular.
It’s late afternoon now so we drive the 0.5 mile to check in at Maswik Lodge, one of a handful of properties in and run by the National Park. Our room with two doubles is smarter than I’d expected of this 1970’s accommodation, with a small balcony overlooking forest and between the trees a single train line up which one tourist train a day passes.
To make the most of the daylight hours (this being the opposite to Vegas) we pack a light dinner and stroll back to the rim edge and descend into the canyon about 0.5 mile down Bright Angel Trail. This rim to rim walk takes two days and one camping night - we feed one hiker some carrots - he’s been walking uphill for eight hours straight. It’s hard to imagine deciding where this trail should lay, let alone carving out the two metre ledge all the way down the canyon side.
As the sun sets of the canyon we climb back to the rim and back to our lodge - getting the playing cards out for the first time in a fortnight, settling back into our travelling days now it’s just the four of us on the road once again.