Snow! 24 Hours from Phoenix to Flagstaff to the Grand Canyon and Back

[theksmith]

tuesday evening, the weather widget on my computer desktop shows snow icons for the next 3 days... i've missed the first couple snows this year so i clear my calendar for wednesday and head up to my girl friend aimee's house in north phoenix with plans to go to flag the next day.

tuesday night, can't sleep, i have a hunch it's going to be a good storm. 2 am, screw it, i'm awake. looking for warm clothes i wake up aimee, she crankily says goodbye. i grab snacks and drinks, quickly fill my 5 gallon water can, throw the sleeping bag and pillow in the jeep, and i'm off (all my survival gear is already in the jeep).

i'm in flagstaff fast, grab mcdonalds and gas. head over to humphreys street to get the 180 and head NW out of town.

edge of flag, nearly kill bambi. anti-lock brakes work well.

pass snobowl and a lot of other roads before finding a forest road that's open. most are closed for winter, but forest service leaves a few open. there are a few inches of snow on the ground from the last storm, but the roads are clear, no new snow yet.

the wind is crazy, so i pick a little open meadow where no trees will fall on me, park headed slightly downhill towards the forest road. i'm only about a mile from the main highway should the jeep not start or something in the morning.

i get in my sleeping bag and put the passenger seat all the way back. it's about 5 am. the wind rocks me and the jeep to sleep.

the erratic whistling, howling, and moaning from the wind, and a stiff neck, wake me up just after 8.

i can't tell if it's snowing at all, or just the winds whipping the existing snow around, skies are dark.

i get going on the forest road, headed east, i'm on the north side of Humphrey's peak, where the land is hilly.

the road is alternating clear and packed snow, the winds really whip around the snow as it's well below freezing and nothing is sticking to anything - just blowing around.

as i get farther east (closer to the 89), i go through some burnt areas and the sun is trying to poke through the clouds. it creates a surrealistic wasteland view.

i get into thicker trees and suddenly the sun is out.

i find a road on the gps that climbs a hill, and figure i can get a good look back at the storm i had been in. sure enough, this is the view south west:

looking north however, it's clear this is a temporary reprieve, there's more storm coming.

continued....

 

[theksmith]

i start heading north more, the map shows some lava flow as you get close to the indian land. i'm very close to the 89, near the northmost entrance to the wupatki monument.

i never find the lava flow, but end up heading back south west. the skies get darker again and the wind picks back up. more dancing snow. i ate the cold extra mcmuffin i had gotten from mcdonalds.

i come out on the 180 further north than where i went in. i'm closer to valle than flagstaff, so i head there for lunch and gas.

there's no fast-food in valle, just a questionable restraunt. i'm told there is food in tusayan, the gateway to the grand canyon, only 20 miles north.

never having been to the grand canyon proper (i did see the far east end by helicopter once, not so "grand" there), i say screw it and head north.

snow! and lots of it! i find an open forest road to play on. but not far, since i hadn't told anyone i was going to this area. i did have my spot on the whole time so aimee could watch me online. Later when i talked to her, she said as soon as she saw me turn north, she knew i was giong to the grand canyon without her and she told Brady and they were both pissed!

i ate inside a wendy's at tusayan to get a break outside of the jeep. i got an extra burger to take with me just in case.

everyone is sliding around in town. there's one small tour van turned on it's lid beside the highway, cops are already there. there's still traffic coming from the grand canyon though, so it must be open... i press north.

i have cell coverage so i send this picture to aimee:

she texts me back "jerk!" she's busy working from home today.

it's a complete white-out, can't see more than 50 feet probably, but hey, i'm already here, might as well go on into the park.

this is what the grand canyon looks like when you can't see it:

there's still plenty of foriegners with big cameras, along with park rangers franticly shoveling snow on the walkways... it appears they are fighting a loosing battle though at the rate it's coming down.

this is what i look like at 24*, after wandering around for 15 minutes, in heavy blowing snow, trying to find the actual rim:

continued...

 

[theksmith]

i head back to valle, and decide to go back to flagstaff via the 180 again instead of cutting down to the 40. i saw on a sign that there were a couple forest roads on the west side that were winter-open and i thought i might have time to explore them.

still well outside flagstaff, the wind picked back up significantly.

eventually the road was completely covered, and the snow was coming down good. still some cars on the road though, some wanting to go faster than me, so i would let them pass. i stopped to pee and take a picture.

it was still cold. very cold.

i made it back into flagstaff, though the closer i got the more traffic there was till it was eventually a 15 mph line of cars. in town i gave everyone a wide berth and drove slow. there were plenty of cars with all the wheels locked up sliding into the middle of intersections. it was about 5pm and it was dark out.

topped off with gas, just in case the 17 turned into a parking lot.

decided last minute to head down the 89, thought a run through the canyon in the snow would be nice. turns out it was closed within a few miles of the 17. good that i went that way though. there was a lady in a 2wd pickup, just stopped in the wrong lane in the middle of the 89. i pulled up beside her to see what's up and put the window down. she was "from L.A. and i don't know how to drive in the snow and i'm lost". all the signs were covered in snow, so i could see how she was lost. she wanted to go to sedona. she had an elderly lady with her and i told her to just turn around and go back into flagstaff for the night. she was afraid to even try and turn in the snow, so i told her to follow me. at the next turnoff, i made a big slow sweeping circle that she could easily follow to get turned around. i told her she was only a 3 miles at most from flag, just to follow this road back.

seeing the road was closed moments later myself, i headed to the 17. after about 15 minutes, this:

didn't even make it to munds park. google maps traffic on the phone was showing a parking lot all the way from where i was to the 179 exit, crap!

i listened to the truckers on CB 19 for a while. eventually i heard that they were turning everyone around at exit 322. i was within sight of exit 326, so instead of waiting, i put it in 4-lo and went on the shoulder to the exit and made the turn around, heading back to flag.

i called aimee and she said the 17 was closed both directions and so was the 87. however, the 87 said open to 4wd or chains, just closed at one spot due to a "rescue and recovery". i decided to try lake mary road to the 87 and then if it was open by the time i got there, i could get home, and if not i'd have plenty of quiet places to pull off the road and sleep for the night.

continued...

 

[theksmith]

they were plowing lake mary rd, but it still had a couple inches on it. i did have to go the long way around morman lake, the str8 thru way was closed.

not many cars. one fast moving tow truck passed me. i stopped and chatted with 2 plow drivers that were taking a break, they didn't know if the 87 was open, but told me this was open that far at least.

i need fog lights. it was snowing so hard that my brights just created a white-out in front of me, and my low beams just didn't really do the job either. the wind was still bad too. i had to go 20 to 30mph all the way to the 87, stopping occasionally to break the ice off the wipers and pee - i had been getting a coffee at every gas stop

just before the 87, someone in a Escalade XL passed me going way to fast. apparently if you can afford an expensive car you become invincible. all the on-star, traction assist, and stability control in the world won't keep you on the road in those conditions. he must have been lucky though, i never found him in a ditch later.

near clint's well the snow changed. it had been windy and whispy dry small flakes. suddenly it was the thickest, stickiest, snowiest snow you've ever seen. the trees were all sagging under the weight.

this snow was so heavy it was creating a white-out even for my low-beams. i had to do about 15 MPH. i came across one jacknifed big rig, cops were there already. i saw another car in the ditch. lots of tracks where people had nearly lost it and recovered, but those where quickly being covered by the heavy snow.

just before the switchback that are north of strawberry, i stopped again to de-ice the wipers and pee. i scraped a good layer of ice off my headlights as well. the wreck that had closed the 87 was on these upcoming switchbacks and i was exhuasted from driving for the past couple hours white-knuckled.

i decided that if i found a place, i'd pull over and sleep. sure enough, there was a nice little forest road on a slight incline a mile later. i went up it forward first, to make tracks and so i could see where i was going. then turned around on the highway and backed back up my tracks. this was one of the few roads without a gate closing it, so i thought perhaps it might need to be used. i tried to back off the edge of it after getting out and checking there was no hidden ditch, but i kept sliding downhill nearly into a tree. finally i decided if anyone needed to get by, they could just wake me up.

i pulled the wipers up so they wouldn't freeze to the window. sleeping bag back out and passenger seat down again, i drifted off. it was about 9pm.

the sound of 2 plows going by woke me just after 11pm. i felt refreshed from my little nap, and it seemed the white-out conditions has subsided, so i decided to go for home.

i made it down the switchback doing 10mph, the heavy snowfall had come back just as soon as i got going. there was one SUV on it's lid in the ditch on the way down, but it was covered it snow so it looked like it had been there for a while.

the few lights in strawberry with the heavy snow looked beautiful.

I easily made it to pine and payson, just before payson everything turned to slush and so i moved from 4WD to AWD. stopped to top-off again in payson just to be safe.

surprisingly there was still a fair amount of snow well south of payson. nothing bad though, could still do 50 mph. eventually picked back up to 60.

everything finally turned into rain, but the wind was back. crazy wind... no completely insane wind!

near sunflower it became a torrential downpour and the gusts were so bad i had to slow back to below 50 mph. one gust grabbed the jeep and threw me into the shoulder. it's the closest i've ever come to literally being blown off the road, and it was on an overpass where the north/south-bound roads weave below each other. scared me well awake.

as i got near fountain hills, there was a decent lightning show going on around phoenix and mesa. the rain and wind were tolerable again though, so i was happy to be nearly home and not fighting the road anymore.

i texted aimee that i made it back, turned off the spot messenger, and pulled into my apartment complex around 2am - exactly 24 hours of adventure.

i was sooo happy to turn the heat on and crawl into bed! but it was a good adventure, worth every minute of time spent!

 

[Chazz Layne]

this is what the grand canyon looks like when you can't see it:

Better than it looks on a clear day IMO, awesome!

 

[Awkragt]

I've only been to the Grand Canyon once. It was snowy too. Probably the best time to go. Was that big clear sidewalked thing open?

 

[theksmith]

I've only been to the Grand Canyon once. It was snowy too. Probably the best time to go. Was that big clear sidewalked thing open?

i only went to the main park, i didn't go to the new skyway thingy, probably would have been pretty neat though

 

[LifeOverland]

Really makes me miss AZ! Looks like fun.

 

[Richie]

That does look like fun. The last few times it's snowed here, I was stuck working. We're getting snow now in New Mexico from the same storm you guys in Arizona got!

 

[arizona gamebird]

funny that you sleep in the passenger seat, nice to know i'm not the only 1 that does that. working late at night and leaving after work that was my preferred quick camp site when leaving for a drive. was out around the white mtns. today lots of snow to play in.thanks for the 24 hr adventure trip.

 

[GabAlmighty]

Damn, looks like an interesting little trip there. The only thing about living in the Lower Mainland of BC is that we're the only place in Canada that see's almost no snow...

Going to have to go out and make a little trip in the new year.

 

[CruiserArtist]

24 hour adventure

Ksmith, you are wild! In a good sort of way:elkgrin:, hope the GF has forgiven you! Nice photos...thanks a ton for the narration. What tires are you running on that rig (nice!)?

 

[Fergie]

I think I saw you heading out of town on Milton...I was in the white 80 series with the ARB.

 

[ttora4runner]

Looks like you had a bit of an adventure.

 

[Brigitta]

Awesome pics of the Grand Canyon! Sounds like you had quite the adventure, glad to hear you had fun and got home safely. We went out to Williams,AZ in July so we could see the canyon and Sedona. Continued onto Bryce cyn and a few more stops before heading home.

Beautiful country no matter what time of year you go.