A visit to the Grand Canyon was an absolute must. It has two sides or rims, the North and the South. We were heading down from the North, so this made more sense for us. Only ten percent of all Grand Canyon tourists go to the North rim and accommodation is in function. There is only one place, the Grand Canyon North Rim Lodge and it is currently taking bookings for 2016. It is also a 45 mile ride in from the nearest other habitation, which consists of a petrol station and an equally popular motel. Not knowing when we would have the bike in America meant we had had no detailed planning and thus no reservation on the Grand Canyon.
On the post-justified basis that there were only two modus operandi for a visit, either a ten minute, 'Wow isn't it big!' appreciation or a 5 day hike to appreciate its bigness we decided for the former, having already dismissed helicopter rides and whitewater rafting. Intermediate positions did not seem to have much logic.
So we left our cherished abode in Springdale for the GC with the idea of having lunch there and then moving on and finding accommodation en route somewhere.
The ride into the Grand Canyon, if you can call it that because the rim is at over 2,000 m above sea level, was exceptionally colourful with the huge clumps of Quaking Aspen trees changing colour. They weren't really clumps as they all have a common root system. So fundamentally it was a forest consisting of one tree.
The Dining Room at the Lodge defines the phrase, 'a room with a view'. If you've got it, flaunt it. And it wasn't one of those 3M stickers on the back of the windows or some giant video screen because you could walk out on to the terrace for a drink and it was still there, or out on to the promontory and look all the way down. We lunched there and there just happened to be a last- minute cancellation, so we slept in a log cabin with vertigo inducing views over the Canyon. A wee bit chilly. We could have done with those woollen blankets we had bought that afternoon in the gift shop, but already posted. So we managed, after all, to adopt an intermediate position and visited five different view points on the North Rim before sunset, back at the Lodge with a view, called us back. So an amazing experience and not overly costly. If we had been able to have dinner as well as breakfast and lunch in the Dining room, it would have been perfect, but no such luck.
Bigness translates as over a two hundred mile trip by road to get from North to South rims. Walkers do it in a day at something less than 25 miles including the up and down bits. There was a twinge of jealousy that soon evaporated when we overheard talks about their getting up times in the morning. So we didn't make the South Rim, but we had to ride a long distance out of the way to go South as there are not that many bridges. The bridge we did eventually reach was pretty spectacular too. At this stage the Colorado River lies not in Colorado, but Arizona.
Onwards to Monument Valley, backdrop to hundreds of Westerns and also rather hot. One is always at altitude and even though we did not know the temperature, we would have sworn it was hotter than the Death Valley. We called it a day early and pulled into a really super, classy Motel in the desert at a place called Bluff. Exceptionally nice with an equally nice café not far away for breakfast. Clearly we had ended up on some sort of tourist track, otherwise why were they there?
The following morning we continued our desert odyssey and travelled to Four Corners, what's an orner? - where the states of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah abut, so we could stand simultaneously in all four. We couldn't work out whether there were different time zones so that we would also be time travelling too. When we set off we had the clouds, menacing clouds. Waterproof putting on just in case type clouds. It was hot. We were in the desert after all. Part of us wanted it to rain so we could see what happened. But it just threatened. The café proprietor had told us to head East when he served us breakfast that morning. A storm was coming in from the West, and one from the North and one from the South which meant a 70% chance of rain. Head East...!
So after Four Corners we headed North.
Paul & Francoise
Glad you are on your way back xx
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