DEL.ICIO.USFROM ATLANTA TO THE GRAND CANYON
Exploring the Grand Canyon's North RimRugged adventure includes mule rides, camping, beautiful vistas
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 08/10/08
Grand Canyon National Park, Ariz.— Perhaps people have such difficulty capturing the Grand Canyon in words because there are so many canyons to describe.
There's the canyon majestic at sunset, brooding as the moon rises, suffering in the harsh light of noon; from the top looking 5,000 feet straight down, or from the bottom looking up at jagged limestone cliffs; the view from the North Rim or the South Rim.
 Phil Kloer / pkloer@ajc.com | ||
| Watching the moon at dusk over the North Rim of the Grand Canyon is a beautiful sight. | ||
 Phil Kloer / pkloer@ajc.com | ||
| Dale Peters of Eau Claire, Wis., goes out on a limb to enjoy the scenery. | ||
 AJC Special | ||
| Phil Kloer and company ride a trail through the canyon. Mules like to walk on the trail's edge, which makes for a heart-thumping ride. | ||
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So this will be but a fraction of the ways to look at the canyon, and all from the rim less traveled — the North.
In 2007, more than 4 million people visited Grand Canyon National Park, but only about 7 percent of them went to the North Rim. The South Rim is the one with the views you see on postcards, the hotels, museums and fast food. Some prefer it because there is more to do; some feel it's too commercial.
The Grand Canyon Lodge
There are two options for staying at the North Rim: a campground and the Grand Canyon Lodge. There are no other hotels or restaurants. None.
The lodge, built in 1928 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places, seems to rise straight out of the ground and feels almost as solid as the canyon itself. It includes a dining room, with floor-to-ceiling windows, serving excellent food and a coffee shop that turns into a "saloon" at night (so you don't have to forgo either your latte or your merlot when you're roughing it). Across the back is a huge stone deck overlooking the canyon, and it's where everyone gathers.
But guests don't stay in the lodge itself, which is just common areas. They stay in log cabins clustered around the lodge. These cabins, which sleep two to six, are comfortable (the beds maybe not so much), but they have no air conditioning, no TVs, no telephones. Anyone who visits the Grand Canyon and misses television deserves to be hurled over the edge, but some folks need to be warned. Maybe you're more a South Rim person.
Speaking of warnings, the lodge added an optional "cookout" this year. It's $35 for adults and $22 for kids. The food is good, but you eat in a tent with paintings of the canyon on the inside, so you're at the canyon looking at bad paintings of the canyon. What the heck are they thinking?
Reservations are recommended as far in advance as possible, and the lodge is closed October to May because of weather. Information: www.grandcanyonlodgenorth.com. Rates about $150 per night.
The mule ride
Visitors can take in the Grand Canyon on parched paths on foot; in a raft on the Colorado River; or just leaning back in a chair up top, nursing a cold drink and taking in the sunset.
And then there are the famous mule rides. Half-day or full day, North Rim or South, they're a tradition that feels like a middle path: easier than serious hiking or rafting, but more adventurous than just hanging at the lodge.
I recently took the full-day mule ride (eight hours, $125). I was glad I took it, and my knees were even more glad when it was over; I know with certainty that I have filled my entire lifetime quota of mule-riding.
Our wrangler, a 22-year-old cowboy named Miles with a sense of humor as dry as the brush we rode through, led a group of four down the North Kaibab Trail into Roaring Springs Canyon and back out, 41/2 miles each way, most of it on very narrow trails with very steep drop-offs. This cannot be overemphasized: If you have some anxiety about heights, and if looking over a sheer edge straight down for 2,000 feet or more bothers you, you really ought to be back up top sipping that cold drink.
My mule, Miss Piggy, was named after her desire to stop at every single sprig of foliage along the trail and munch. She also, like all the mules, loved walking as close to the edge of the trail as possible.
The ride starts at 7:30 a.m. at about 8,000 feet elevation and drops 4,300 feet as it heads down into the canyon. Temperatures start mild and go up considerably (in the summer, it might be a high of 80 degrees on the rim and 105 at the bottom). At the midpoint of the ride, Roaring Springs, there's a brown bag lunch, a waterfall, some nice cool pools to splash in. Then it's back up the same path.
The views from mule-back are wonderful, as all the canyon views tend to be, but different because you are looking up at all those towering Redwall limestone walls instead of looking down. And when your mule seems to step out into thin air as you turn on a treacherous switchback, trust me, you'll be looking up instead of down.
North Rim mule rides: www.canyonrides.com/pkgrandcanyon.html.
North Rim checklist
• If flying into Las Vegas and renting a car, consider spending a few extra bucks for a convertible. The drive through Kaibab National Forest to the North Rim in a convertible is worth it.
• Get up as early as possible, get a coffee at the "saloon," and sit on the deck when hardly anyone is around.
• Buy one of the many books in the bookstore and read some history and geology; this is a place where they really matter.
• Have dinner in the excellent Lodge Dining Room. Try to get a seat by the enormous windows, which is of course where everyone wants to sit.
• Hike Bright Angel Point Trail. It's not too steep and not too long so almost anyone can manage it, and the views are spectacular.
• If they have the big telescope out on the deck, stop and look at the moon.
Reactions
• "Things are not what they seem, and the perceptions cannot tell us what they are." — Geologist Clarence Dutton, who mapped the canyon in the 1870s
• "It is the sum total of all aspects of nature combined in one integrated whole. ... In its heart is the savage, uncontrollable fury of all the inanimate universe, and at the same time the immeasurable serenity that succeeds it. It is Creation." — Frank Waters, novelist and biographer whose works concentrated on the American Southwest (1902-1995)
• "Leave it as it is. You cannot improve on it, and man can only mar it." — Former President Teddy Roosevelt
• "Ours has been the first, and will doubtless be the last, party of whites to visit this profitless locality. It seems intended by nature that the Colorado River, along with the greater portion of its lonely and majestic way, shall be forever unvisited and undisturbed." — Lt. Joseph Christmas Ives, U.S. Army surveyor, circa 1858
•"Golly, what a gully!" — Former President William Howard Taft
Facts about the Grand Canyon
Size: The main canyon is 277 miles long and 10 to 18 miles wide. At its deepest, it's more than 1 mile. Grand Canyon National Park is more than 1 million acres.
Age: The canyon (as erosion) is "only" 5 million to 6 million years old. The oldest exposed rocks are 2 billion years old.
Cost: Entrance to the park is $25 per car for one week. Hotels on the North and South rim in various price ranges, and campsites are available.
Information: www.nps.gov/grca
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