There is one way to drive on paved roads from Page, Arizona, to the North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park, at least without going way out of your way. Go south from Page on U.S. 89, then north on U.S. 89A, then south on Arizona 67. If that sounds a little roundabout, it is, but the drive is worth every minute you spend. It takes two to two-and-a-half hours if you don’t stop much.
Eventually, you end up at the park, famed the world over.
As the raven flies, and we saw a fair number of them soaring on the air currents around the canyon, it is about 10 miles from the North Rim to the South Rim. Driving from the North Rim to the South involves more than 200 roundabout miles.
The South Rim has fairly close access to a large metro area — Phoenix — and the sizable town of Flagstaff as a closer jumping off point. That’s what we did in 1997. It occurs to me that we visited the canyon this time two days short of exactly 25 years after the first time.
The nearest town to the North Rim is Page, reached as I’ve described. Not exactly remote, but certainly out of the way. In 2021, about 221,000 visitors came through the North Rim entrance when it was open May through mid-October, according to NPS stats. (The road is snowed in much of the year.) So for every one visitor to the north last year, there were 10 to the south, with about 2.2 million visitors coming to the South Rim during 2021.
When we got to the North Rim last Tuesday morning, the place was popular enough, but not overrun. Even mere feet away from the Grand Canyon Lodge North Rim parking lot, which is where the road into the park ends, the view doesn’t disappoint.
The lodge itself, just opened for the season two days earlier, is perched on the rim, and built from native stone and timber, especially Kaibab limestone from the nearby cliff at Bright Angel Point.
People were perched on the lodge viewpoints.
Through a subsidiary, the Union Pacific Railroad originally developed the lodge in the 1920s, though the first structure burned down after only a few years, and was rebuilt somewhat differently in the ’30s. Design by Gilbert Stanley Underwood, who specialized in lodges and railroad stations. He also designed 140 cabins surrounding the main lodge by 1928.
“Erected in 1927-28, this is the most intact rustic hotel development remaining in the National Parks from the era when railroads, in this case the Union Pacific, fostered construction of ‘destination resorts,’ ” says the National Historic Landmarks listing for the building.
“The main lodge building was rebuilt in 1936 following a devastating fire, but its most important interior spaces retained their scale, materials and flavor, and the deluxe cabins and standard cabins of log and stone construction also kept their fabric, layout and ambiance.”
From the lodge, Bright Angel Point is a 10-minute walk along a trail created by — no need to guess very hard — CCC workers. Those lads need to be honored with a bronze on the grounds somewhere, though I might have missed it.
Out at Bright Angel Point. Let’s just say there were impressive views. And an impressive wind whipping by.
We didn’t have the place to ourselves, but sometimes, almost.
We had lunch in the lodge restaurant, an enormous space with high ceilings, dark woods and towering windows to bring the view of the canyon into room. The food: decent. The view: magnificent.
A separate trail leads away from the lodge and heads toward the campgrounds, a few miles away. We walked part of that trail, which generally follows the rim.
Offering its own views.
A return trail cuts through a pine forest, with no notion of the yawning canyon a short distance away.
Sometimes, we had to go around the trees lying across the trail.
There’s a life metaphor in that somewhere, but on the other hand, a walk in the woods is sometimes just a good ramble.
There are also smaller memorials, such as one to all U.S. service men and women, and one to honor Victor, LeRoy Police K-9 Officer from 2005 to 2012.
