Days 10 and 11: Grand Canyon

   

  So, moving on again towards the final sections of our trip, we approached the Grand Canyon, via an interesting old trading post by a rickety suspension bridge at Cameron. Our first sight of the Canyon was at Navajo Point, where is found the Desert View Watchtower, a quirky building that dates to the period in the 1930s that the national park was opening up to visitors.

      From here you can look into the depths of the canyon itself, which is so vast that our brains can’t really comprehend it. But you just spend a lot of time staring into this amazing abyss, transfixed.

      The Colorado river can be glimpsed a mile straight down below the rim: and rising above are layer after layer of sediment. The canyon is 277 miles long and up to 18 miles wide.

      We continued along the south rim’s scenic drive, stopping off many times at the various viewpoints, for about thirty miles to the main village, then south a little to Tusayan, where we stayed for a couple of nights. This is a typical national park fringe town of motels, steak houses and the like. There is a quirky IMAX presentation, which includes great fly throughs of the bottom of the canyon, but with highly dubious ‘historical recreations’.

      No — the canyon itself is the thing, and we took several long walks along the rim, watching a chilly, brilliant sunset and along the bluffs further west during the day. Theodore Roosevelt, a great advocate for its preservation, said: ‘The Grand Canyon fills me with awe. It is beyond comparison absolutely unparalleled throughout the wide world. Let this great wonder of nature remain as it is now. Do nothing to mar its grandeur, sublimeity and loveliness.’ The national park service do a great job in preserving it, while allowing easy, unobtrusive access, and long may this continue.