Monday, September 5th
Grand Canyon National Park is about 270 miles or a 4-hour drive from Las Vegas.
We woke up early on Monday and headed to the South Rim, the most used entrance of the park and the easiest to get to. An estimated 5 million people visit this park each year and Jeff and I wanted to stay away from all of them! The best way to do that? Hike.
We arrived at the park entrance around 9 am and mapped out our day. We stopped at several overlooks along Desert View Drive and finally learned how to use our selfie stick! I know it sounds crazy that it took me 5 whole days to figure out, but trust me, this selfie stick isn’t just, “place phone here and push this button”, I had to do some real investigative YouTube work to figure it out. 🙂 (Ok fine, as soon as I watched the video I felt really dumb, but at least I know how to use it now!)
We found a hike to Shoshone Point, a special little spot not advertised on most park maps. We learned about it in our trusty Secrets of the NP book. Once we parked, it was a fairly quick hike walk along a dirt road to Shoshone Point (roughly 1.2 miles). At the end of the path, we found picnic tables, fire pits, and restrooms. Shoshone Point is apparently available for weddings and events, and it was very well maintained, but you may want to keep an extra eye on party guests out there; those drop-offs are no joke!
Here I am safely resting against a tree because I was too afraid to stand facing the camera with my back to the edge of the Grand Canyon!
We found a path that led us to the actual ‘point’ and obviously, I was too scared to go. Jeff climbed his way to the edge while I sat in fear with our Camelbak and camera. I think I even prayed. There was literally no way for me to see how much foot room he truly had. I was terrified for him, and also slightly concerned that he might have the keys to the car! (Kidding..mostly).
My view from Shoshone Point (that little red dot is Jeff!)
Jeff’s View:
I can hardly look at this picture. Ah!
Anyway, once Jeff made it back to safety, we sat on one of the overlooking picnic tables and had a beer and a PB&J sandwich (for the umpteenth day in a row). We walked back to our car and headed for the visitor’s center because if you don’t visit the visitor’s center, did you even really visit the park? My vote is no. But, we also needed some postcards, so off we went!
On the way, we stopped at the Desert View Watchtower, but we were too crowd shy to go in. The tower was built in 1932 by Mary Colter and was meant to be a re-creation of an Indian watchtower. It’s pretty, even from the outside. The view from outside the tower isn’t all that bad either.
The Grand Canyon is totally beautiful and breathtaking, and I’m so glad we had it on our list of parks to visit. Next time, though, we want to hike a little more of the actual canyon and do some camping here. We only spent a few hours at GCNP and it deserves much more!
Next Stop: Zion Nation Park, the most magical place on earth!
~Adventure is out there!
Julia
