We left the North Rim, winding down the road through the Kaibab Forest and south to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. Nice views as we continued the windy road.
We are staying at Ten X , a national forest campground about 4 miles from the south entrance of Grand Canyon National Park. It is a lovely spot, away from the main road with large spacious spots. Some of the pull throughs, such as the one we have, are long enough for several large motorhomes. There are no motorhomes in view from any of our windows, just ponderosa pines and gambel oak trees, Plus we are only paying $5 a night!! No hook ups but who cares. This is cheaper and much nicer than our last stop. Interesting pricing as this campground is run by the forest service while our last stop was run by a concessionaire.
As I had read that all the reserved sites were full for the weekend, we left early to get here by noon to get one of the first come first serve spots. Good thing we did as we got one of the last large pull thru sites. As it was still early, we headed over to the park to do a little touring.
As the picture above shows it is a world heritage site and certainly deserves it. Besides being magnificent, this park was well planned. All the building blend well into the landscape. Some of the lodging are set down on side roads so they are not seen from the main road or rim. This place gets 5 million visitors a year, many from other countries. Some of the area is accessible by shuttle only or walking the rim. We will take the shuttle another day when we don't have Savannah with us. The Rim Trail stretches from the South Kaibab Trailhead west to Hermits Rest, a distance of approximately thirteen miles and dogs are allowed!!
We stopped at the visitor center first and then walked over to the Rim for our first view from this side of the Canyon. Again it is hard to show in pictures how expansive it is. It is overwhelming. Just WOW. The Canyon has many rock layers, carved out over nearly 2 billion years. It is mind blowing how moving waters, land masses colliding and drifting apart, sea levels rising and falling have created this unique place. There is not a lot of vegetation on the elevated plateau and so all the different layers are on view for all to see.
You can see the Colorado River below and some of the rapids.
The trail is paved most of the way and this section near the visitor center and lodging area is mostly flat and so easy for anyone to enjoy.
As we headed back to the campground, we saw some elk grazing on the side of the road. Yeah, wildlife.
Stay tune for further adventures in this Grand Grand Canyon,
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