North Rim of the Grand Canyon
Southwestern Trip 2022 | Lee’s Ferry to the North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park | October 2022
At this point in our road trip, we weren’t quite halfway done, but after yesterday’s excitement of completing a big bucket list item (kayaking to Antelope Canyon) I was concerned that we had already “peaked” for this trip. Could anything else that we had planned top how cool it was to kayak and hike by ourselves into that world-famous slot canyon? We didn’t know, but at least we were still excited about our plans for the rest of the trip.
Today’s focus was on the North rim of the Grand Canyon. We hadn’t been to the national park since our big hike back in 2015, and though we were excited to be back, we were mostly excited for Charlotte to get to see it for the first time. And while we had been to the South Rim and Supai before, neither of us had ever been to this side (technically we drove by on our 2015 Spring Break Trip, but the entire road down to the rim was covered in snow). We had always imagined that when we did it would be either on a rim-to-rim hike or while backpacking the Arizona Trail, but since we were in the area we decided to see it anyway. The entire area, both NPS and USFS, were in their final weeks of operation until next summer, so it seemed like a good chance to go when it wasn’t too hot or busy.
After packing up at Lee’s Ferry, we started the drive up to Jacob’s Lake. The elevation went up, and the temperature went down. We began heading South on AZ-67 in Jacob’s Lake, and though we were ready to see the canyon and get an early start on today’s adventure, we were already thinking about finding a campsite for that evening. We realized the night before that it might have been a mistake to visit a national park on the Saturday of a holiday weekend, and worried we wouldn’t find a spot. (We would later learn we had no reason for concern if we had been aware of how much dispersed camping there was in Kaibab National Forest!) We decided to check Demotte Campground to see if they had any openings since it was halfway down 67 and near some places Curtis wanted to visit in Kaibab National Forest. We lucked out by arriving right after a first come-first served site opened, and the camp host gave the ok to claim that spot even though it was only around 8AM. This ended up being a good thing because we were able to spend the entire rest of the day enjoying the national park & forest without having to think about finding a campsite that night!
With all that settled, we continued our drive to the national park. The road went between forested (and looking like there had been a recent fire) to open meadows — we later learned that there is a herd of bison in this area that you can sometimes see, though they tend to stay within the boundary of the national park since they’re safe from hunters there. But best of all, much of this drive was surrounded by aspen trees that were at peak golden colors — we didn’t expect that at all, and they made the whole day that much more beautiful. We started asking ourselves, is the North rim of the Grand Canyon the better rim?
There was no line at the entrance to the park, where we got a map then drove the remaining 12 miles to the rim of the canyon. It was busier in this area, sure, but there was still plenty of parking available, and we began our time here with finding cancellation stamps and walking along the rim. Charlotte was allowed to do some of the rim walk, the Bridle path heading North into the forest, and anything in Kaibab National Forest. One question we had before arriving was, could we see Mt. Humphrey’s and other mountains around Flagstaff? Thanks to clearer skies, today they were clearly visible on the horizon! Curtis and I took turns hiking the short trail to Bright Angel Point from which we could see almost the entirety of the Arizona Trail as well as our route that we had taken when we hiked the Grand Canyon in 2015 (only the section along the Colorado River itself was obscured). Then we sat and listened to a ranger give a presentation on the rim. He was a retired park ranger that worked over 50 years in national and state parks, and was now volunteering during the summer. He stayed behind afterward to answer more questions, and we really enjoyed talking with him. (Oddly, we are pretty sure that this was our first Ranger Talk, despite almost 10 years of visiting National Parks.)
Next, we decided to follow the Bridle path North into the forest for a ways just to give Charlotte some more exercise. It was a lovely, peaceful walk through the pines. When we returned to the parking area, we decided to have a little picnic lunch on the rim. We decided that since today wasn’t about hiking into the canyon, we would focus on driving to the different lookouts and seeing as much as we could with Char.
We started driving East towards two different lookouts — Point Imperial and Cape Royal. The drive was long, but especially scenic thanks to the golden aspens. We started at Point Imperial, which had a very short lookout trail and several pretty viewpoints to the Northeast towards Page and Navajo Mountain, and more of the canyon to the East and South. Our second stop, Cape Royal, had a quarter mile trail which we took turns hiking while the other waited with Char in the parking lot. We each enjoyed seeing Angel’s Window, and both agreed that Cape Royal had possibly the best view we had seen from either rim of the Grand Canyon!
By the end of our time at the North Rim, we had come to the conclusion that it was worth visiting even if we weren’t doing a big hike, and also, it was for sure our favorite rim of the Grand Canyon and we would love to return someday. With some time left before sunset, we exited the park and started heading North towards Demotte Campground. Shortly before the campground, we turned right to do some exploring in Kaibab National Forest along the Arizona Trail. First, we went for a short hike to find a letterbox just outside the park boundaries. While we were able to find the box, some ominous clouds came seemingly out of nowhere and we started to hear thunder rumbling. We decided to save the fire tower further down the trail for another time, because being near a giant metal structure if there was lightning didn’t seem like the best idea. Despite the threat of rain, we drove further East to another AZT junction where we got out and walked to watch the sunset from the East Rim viewpoint. We met a couple of section hikers here and stopped to chat with them for a bit. They have the advantage of living in Kanab, so they had hiked quite a bit of the Northern sections of the trail, and we enjoyed talking with them.
Thankfully the storm clouds headed Southwest of us, so our sunset viewing and night of camping remained dry. The clouds made and our angle made the sunset obscured, but we enjoyed seeing the sky change colors, the moonrise over the canyon, and a very brief rainbow. The light reflected on the aspen trees behind us gave them a deeper orange tone that was too beautiful to look away from.
Finally, after a great day full of gorgeous scenery, we made our way back to our tent. We concluded that even though yesterday’s kayaking/hiking adventure was definitely a highlight of the trip, we also hadn’t yet peaked. There were still plenty of great places to see and hikes to do…just maybe not as ‘extreme’.
