Day 24 - Tuesday, Oct 17 - Kanab, UT, Grand Canyon, Flagstaff, AZ
Starting mileage: 5831 Starting time: 8:30 am
Ending mileage: 6166 Ending time: 5:00 pm
Travel mileage: 335 Travel time: 8:30 hours
It was only about 1 1/2 hours from Kanab to the north rim of the Grand Canyon.
Just after we entered the park, there was a herd of bison in the meadow and two right in the middle of the road. As we got closer, they wandered off to the side. Carmen took a photo out of the car window and the bison started to come closer to the car so we took off.
The lodge and seasonal facilities had closed on Monday so it was pretty quiet and we didn't have any trouble parking. Some of the viewpoint stops we made didn't have a lot of extra parking and it could have been very busy during the main season. We are fortunate to be able to visit off-season.
Our first stop at the Grand Canyon was the Bright Angel Point, a slender point that sticks out between two side canyons. In some ways, the north rim of the Grand Canyon is more spectacular than the south rim because there are many side canyons. The water on the north rim travels south, creating side canyons where the water flows over the edge. Due to the topography, the water on the south rim also travels south, away from the canyon so there is just the steep drop down to the Colorado river.
There is a very winding 22 mile road that travels along numerous other vistas along the rim where there are short walks out to spectacular views. One of the more interesting is the Angel's Window, a hole through the rock through which you can see the Colorado River below, although probably not in my photo. We did walk out to the very end over the Angel's Window.
While we were there, we could see smoke from a fire on the south rim which hadn't been there an hour before. An hour later, the smoke was several times larger, although we don't know if this was a prescribed burn or an unintentional burn. As in many places in the west, there are constant signs of forest fire. There was a huge uncontrolled fire in 2000 that burned over 14000 acres. Some of the areas that are coming back are dense aspen groves instead of the Ponderosa pine forest that was there before.
On the way from the Grand Canyon to Flagstaff, we passed by the Vermillion Cliffs national monument, spectacular sheer cliffs of bright red sandstone.
The time changes have been very confusing. Utah and Arizona are both in Mountain Time but Arizona doesn't recognize daylight saving time so it is an hour earlier, the same as California. The cell phone is pretty good a figuring out the correct time, but as we traveled to Flagstaff, it flipped back and forth several times, I think due to traveling through Indian reservations where they may be following daylight saving time. Plus, it means synchronizing the car clock, computer, tablet and Fitbit!
Ending mileage: 6166 Ending time: 5:00 pm
Travel mileage: 335 Travel time: 8:30 hours
It was only about 1 1/2 hours from Kanab to the north rim of the Grand Canyon.
Just after we entered the park, there was a herd of bison in the meadow and two right in the middle of the road. As we got closer, they wandered off to the side. Carmen took a photo out of the car window and the bison started to come closer to the car so we took off.
The lodge and seasonal facilities had closed on Monday so it was pretty quiet and we didn't have any trouble parking. Some of the viewpoint stops we made didn't have a lot of extra parking and it could have been very busy during the main season. We are fortunate to be able to visit off-season.
Our first stop at the Grand Canyon was the Bright Angel Point, a slender point that sticks out between two side canyons. In some ways, the north rim of the Grand Canyon is more spectacular than the south rim because there are many side canyons. The water on the north rim travels south, creating side canyons where the water flows over the edge. Due to the topography, the water on the south rim also travels south, away from the canyon so there is just the steep drop down to the Colorado river.
There is a very winding 22 mile road that travels along numerous other vistas along the rim where there are short walks out to spectacular views. One of the more interesting is the Angel's Window, a hole through the rock through which you can see the Colorado River below, although probably not in my photo. We did walk out to the very end over the Angel's Window.
While we were there, we could see smoke from a fire on the south rim which hadn't been there an hour before. An hour later, the smoke was several times larger, although we don't know if this was a prescribed burn or an unintentional burn. As in many places in the west, there are constant signs of forest fire. There was a huge uncontrolled fire in 2000 that burned over 14000 acres. Some of the areas that are coming back are dense aspen groves instead of the Ponderosa pine forest that was there before.
On the way from the Grand Canyon to Flagstaff, we passed by the Vermillion Cliffs national monument, spectacular sheer cliffs of bright red sandstone.
The time changes have been very confusing. Utah and Arizona are both in Mountain Time but Arizona doesn't recognize daylight saving time so it is an hour earlier, the same as California. The cell phone is pretty good a figuring out the correct time, but as we traveled to Flagstaff, it flipped back and forth several times, I think due to traveling through Indian reservations where they may be following daylight saving time. Plus, it means synchronizing the car clock, computer, tablet and Fitbit!
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| Day 24 travel |
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| Bison at entrance to Grand Canyon |
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| Bright Angel Point |
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| Angel's Window |
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| Fire aftermath with aspen regrowth |
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| Vermillion Cliffs |
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