We were on a time crunch while visiting the Grand Canyon, so we only scratched the surface and would love to return, but here’s a taste of it.
First, if you’ve never been to the Grand Canyon, you must see it! Adam couldn’t decide if he wanted to go to the Grand Canyon or stop somewhere else on our trip to New Mexico, but then he was blown away by it! Now he compares just about everything else we do/see to how cool the Grand Canyon was.
The Grand Canyon – It looks even bigger in person!
You have two options for how you can enter the Grand Canyon: The North Rim or the South Rim. We chose the South Rim because that’s what worked best in our route to New Mexico for another Travel PT gig. We’ve also heard the North Rim is difficult to get to from October through May because it’s 1,000 ft higher than the South Rim and the roads do not always get plowed. If you have enough time and are physically fit enough, you can hike rim to rim to get the full experience!
As for our experience with the South Rim, it worked best to make the visitor’s center our home base. From there, we could shuttle to where we wanted to go and not have to worry about finding parking. At the visitor’s center, they have drinking water and lots of helpful signs to read about each hike and the canyon in general.
We got to the Grand Canyon in the afternoon on our first day there, so we chose a shorter hike just to get a feel for it. We did the South Kaibab Trail to Cedar Ridge Point and turned around there for time’s sake. This was a three-mile hike round trip and it took us a little under 1.5 hours, including our enjoying the view from Cedar Ridge for a while. Keep in mind for all the hikes into the Grand Canyon, you are hiking downhill for the first half and uphill for the second half. They recommend to budget double your time for your hike out. We like to book it, so that rule didn’t quite apply to us, but it does take a little longer to hike up and out of the canyon.
South Kaibab Trail
Cedar Ridge Lookout
The Grand Canyon from the viewpoint of Adam’s shades!
South Kaibab Trail
Cedar Ridge Lookout
The Grand Canyon from the viewpoint of Adam’s shades!
We wanted to do a longer hike on our second day in the canyon, but we were still on a time crunch for making it to our next destination in time that evening. We decided to do the Bright Angel Trail to Plateau Point. This is a 12-mile round trip trail with 3,254 ft of elevation. Plateau point is at the six-mile mark where you turn around and it’s quite beautiful; you can get a beautiful view of the Colorado River from here! It took us about five hours to complete this hike, but we were purposefully keeping a steady pace. The park recommends budgeting 8-12 hours for this hike and claims that it’s the longest day hike to safely complete. This may be true in the summer when it’s scorching hot, but in March when it was perfect hiking weather, it definitely would have been feasible to do the 18-mile Bright Angel Trail to Bright Angel Campground (right by the river) in one day if we had had more time! If you are able to spend a few days in the canyon, we definitely recommend camping by the river! When we return someday, we plan to stay at Angel Bright Campground. This time around, we had a car full of all our stuff and opted for a local hotel.
We found some cool, purple cacti.
The Colorado River!
Plateau Point via Bright Angel Trail
We found some cool, purple cacti.
The Colorado River!
Plateau Point via Bright Angel Trail
If you only have time to stop by quick or aren’t physically able to hike down into the canyon, the Rim Trail is a good option. Portions of it are paved and there are some good lookouts on it to be able to see down into the canyon. Another option for a quick snapshot of the canyon would be to check out the skywalk at Eagle Point in Grand Canyon West.
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