TOUGE
Active member
This is my first ever trip report. I have done many, many trips over the years and taken 10,000s of photos but never actually written a report, so here goes!
This was quite a last minute trip as some work fell though so I packed the car and headed north east to the Grand Canyon for 7 nights. A friend from work tagged along for the ride. I did this trip July 9-15 and being right after 4th of July and middle of school holidays I wanted to go back country as much as possible to get away fro the crowds.
Coming from L.A meant it was easiest to do the south rim first. So I packed the car Sunday night(after getting back late from a few days wakeboarding up at Lake Nacimiento) for an early departure Monday morning.
Click any of the photos to see them in higher res on Flickr. I like taking photos so there is lots of them!
The drive up to Tusayan, Az as uneventful and quicker than I expected. Took little detours off the 40 to do bits of the old route 66, Stopped off in Kingman, Az for a good diner lunch. The table next to me ordered the Mr D'z special burger which has 4lbs of meat in it!!! I didn't stick around to see if the poor guy finished it.
Filled up in Tusayan and headed out along FR302 to Grandview Fire Lookout tower for my first ever view of the Grand Canyon. I was met with this view,
I planned to camp at the bottom of the tower but there were already 6 other groups already setup there with a few RVs running generators so I decided to to back track towards Tusayan to found a more secluded camp. I found a nice little place off FR302 back a bit from the road and setup camp for the first night. The whole area was in a strict fire ban so unfortunately couldn't have an fire the whole trip.
After a long days driving a beer and nap in the hammock was amazing.
Storms rolled through that night which made me sleep like a baby(I love storms). Woke early and made breakfast, packed up camp and heading into Tusayan to catch the bus up to the south rim to go the backcountry office to pick up the camping permits needed for the trip and to do the rim walk from the backcountry office out to Hermits Rest. I expected south rim to be way busier than it was. I was one of three cars in the day lot for the bus and most the carparks at the rim were quite empty.
With the permits in hand headed to rim for a stroll around it. I was blown away by the view from the whole walk. Every corner you take give you a different perspective on just how massive the place is. I could never get bored of that view!
A large electrical storm came in about 1pm closing most of the rim, so I headed back into town to get my car and head out to Havasupai Point for the nights camp at Signal Hill Camp spot. The rain made the drive fun with some slippery mud bits along the way.
The view from the end of Havasupai point is just incredible.
Setup camp, watched the sunset and cooked some Carne Asada tacos for dinner with some local(ish, Flagstaff) craft beer.
The next day was a long day in the car with the move north. Headed out to Page, Az to see Horseshoe bend and Antelope canyon. The trail back out the morning was much easier as it had mostly dried which meant for a quick trip. Did Desert View drive which took as while as I kept stopping at every view point.
Got to Horseshoe bend about 2pm and it was bloody hot and extremely busy. 6 tour buses and an over flowing carpark. The landscape around the carpark was utterly heartbreaking as it was just absolutely filled with rubbish, even with the amount of bins around the carpark. The whole walk out to the viewpoint I was hoping it would be a lot cleaner. It was but not by much.... It was super packed and because of the heat lots of idiots didn't take water(even though there were signs everywhere telling you to) collapsing on the trail. I only took a few pics, got pissed off and left.
After that headed into Page, grabbed some lunch and headed out to Antelope canyon. I should have researched this bit a bit better, I thought you could just walk the canyon but you can't, you have pay a shitload to be herded around, not my thing. So we headed to camp on the north side of Marble Canyon in some BLM land. Some great views over the early stages of the Grand Canyon coming back down from Page.
Got to the BLM land as 2 large storms rolled in, one from the north and one from the southwest. These were the largest and most electrical of the whole trip. Great to watch, didn't get any good photos as the rain was just too heavy. We didn't set up camp because we were waiting pass though but they didn't, by 21:30 the lighting hadn't subsided and that BLM land is very exposed so it was decided to find one of the hotels near by to hide for the night. Out in the BLM land we met a few people that had driven all the way down from new Jersey, they were in a Lexus RX 350 and were worried about getting out in the storm. They followed me out just incase they got stuck I could tow them out. There was about 1ft deep flowing water dwon the short trail on the BLM land back to the highway, lucky we got out when we did. We stayed at the same hotel, had many beers and some Jack Daniels shared stories of our trips and then went to bed.
This was quite a last minute trip as some work fell though so I packed the car and headed north east to the Grand Canyon for 7 nights. A friend from work tagged along for the ride. I did this trip July 9-15 and being right after 4th of July and middle of school holidays I wanted to go back country as much as possible to get away fro the crowds.
Coming from L.A meant it was easiest to do the south rim first. So I packed the car Sunday night(after getting back late from a few days wakeboarding up at Lake Nacimiento) for an early departure Monday morning.
Click any of the photos to see them in higher res on Flickr. I like taking photos so there is lots of them!
The drive up to Tusayan, Az as uneventful and quicker than I expected. Took little detours off the 40 to do bits of the old route 66, Stopped off in Kingman, Az for a good diner lunch. The table next to me ordered the Mr D'z special burger which has 4lbs of meat in it!!! I didn't stick around to see if the poor guy finished it.
Filled up in Tusayan and headed out along FR302 to Grandview Fire Lookout tower for my first ever view of the Grand Canyon. I was met with this view,
I planned to camp at the bottom of the tower but there were already 6 other groups already setup there with a few RVs running generators so I decided to to back track towards Tusayan to found a more secluded camp. I found a nice little place off FR302 back a bit from the road and setup camp for the first night. The whole area was in a strict fire ban so unfortunately couldn't have an fire the whole trip.
After a long days driving a beer and nap in the hammock was amazing.
Storms rolled through that night which made me sleep like a baby(I love storms). Woke early and made breakfast, packed up camp and heading into Tusayan to catch the bus up to the south rim to go the backcountry office to pick up the camping permits needed for the trip and to do the rim walk from the backcountry office out to Hermits Rest. I expected south rim to be way busier than it was. I was one of three cars in the day lot for the bus and most the carparks at the rim were quite empty.
With the permits in hand headed to rim for a stroll around it. I was blown away by the view from the whole walk. Every corner you take give you a different perspective on just how massive the place is. I could never get bored of that view!
A large electrical storm came in about 1pm closing most of the rim, so I headed back into town to get my car and head out to Havasupai Point for the nights camp at Signal Hill Camp spot. The rain made the drive fun with some slippery mud bits along the way.
The view from the end of Havasupai point is just incredible.
Setup camp, watched the sunset and cooked some Carne Asada tacos for dinner with some local(ish, Flagstaff) craft beer.
The next day was a long day in the car with the move north. Headed out to Page, Az to see Horseshoe bend and Antelope canyon. The trail back out the morning was much easier as it had mostly dried which meant for a quick trip. Did Desert View drive which took as while as I kept stopping at every view point.
Got to Horseshoe bend about 2pm and it was bloody hot and extremely busy. 6 tour buses and an over flowing carpark. The landscape around the carpark was utterly heartbreaking as it was just absolutely filled with rubbish, even with the amount of bins around the carpark. The whole walk out to the viewpoint I was hoping it would be a lot cleaner. It was but not by much.... It was super packed and because of the heat lots of idiots didn't take water(even though there were signs everywhere telling you to) collapsing on the trail. I only took a few pics, got pissed off and left.
After that headed into Page, grabbed some lunch and headed out to Antelope canyon. I should have researched this bit a bit better, I thought you could just walk the canyon but you can't, you have pay a shitload to be herded around, not my thing. So we headed to camp on the north side of Marble Canyon in some BLM land. Some great views over the early stages of the Grand Canyon coming back down from Page.
Got to the BLM land as 2 large storms rolled in, one from the north and one from the southwest. These were the largest and most electrical of the whole trip. Great to watch, didn't get any good photos as the rain was just too heavy. We didn't set up camp because we were waiting pass though but they didn't, by 21:30 the lighting hadn't subsided and that BLM land is very exposed so it was decided to find one of the hotels near by to hide for the night. Out in the BLM land we met a few people that had driven all the way down from new Jersey, they were in a Lexus RX 350 and were worried about getting out in the storm. They followed me out just incase they got stuck I could tow them out. There was about 1ft deep flowing water dwon the short trail on the BLM land back to the highway, lucky we got out when we did. We stayed at the same hotel, had many beers and some Jack Daniels shared stories of our trips and then went to bed.
