The North Rim

From our campground in Kanab, UT, the North Rim Visitor Center is 82 miles away, so we got an early start.  The North Rim is less visited overall, but we still wanted to be in and out before the crowds descended, and we succeeded.  It is estimated that only 10% of the 6 million visitors a year to the Grand Canyon visit the North Rim, it is 10 miles distant as the crow flies, but a rim to rim hike is about 21-24 miles, and to drive it is 210 miles!  It is also 1000' higher on the North Rim and much cooler, and mostly wooded.  Not as many viewpoints, but it is still spectacular, and we much prefer the North over the South, although you should make an effort to see both.  

We pulled in to the visitor center parking lot and there is no view of the canyon, in fact it is funny, at that point you don't even know it's there.  Oh, but it is, after a short walk.

The visitor center perched on the rim

Jan and Tom took a hike out the Bright Angel Trail, Karen and I stayed back, we don't do heights very well:-)

The narrow trail

Tom strolling along

The view was worth it for them, this picture is fine for me

We then drove out to the Angel's Window viewpoint, another 23 miles of very windy pretty road.  We set up a picnic on the rim with not too bad a view:-)

Jan near our picnic spot

Jan and I standing right at the "altar" at the wedding venue they have there

Angel's Window, and yes those are people on top, again Tom and Jan decided
to walk out there

The path to the point

Jan out on the end

Tom checking how far down, down is

Then we worked our way back to Point Imperial, the highest point on the North Rim at 8803'.

See the bend in the Colorado River middle right?

A closer view, the Anazazi lived down here in the winter.
Then in the summer they would hike up to the rim to plant and live.
It was a 2 1/2 day hike to the rim from there along a stream

After the Grand Canyon we left for Page, AZ, and the Wahweap Campground beside the Wahweap Bay on Lake Powell.  

Interesting terrain along the way

The view right below the campground

A view of the marina

All reports and pictures of this campground show a beautiful, all paved, terraced top tier park.  And that turned out to be partly true, there were quite a few sites that were extraordinary, huge with patios, etc, but most were not, and there is no way to pick out a particular site, so you get what you get.  We even made a reservation for two sites so we could be together and even that didn't work out, in fact we were so far apart we had to drive to happy hour!  We were shoehorned into a shared site with another 45' coach with a trailer.  Nice place, we won't go back unless you could pick your site.  Oh yeah, and did I mention it was expensive too.

Our shared site

So bye bye, off to Durango for a couple weeks.

A cool view of the lake right above the dam

So after a few hundred miles we left the desert, said goodbye, and welcomed the mountains and green.