April 15 & 16: Sunset Crater & The Grand Canyon National Park, Part One

Friday, April 15th - Travel to Grand Canyon, Stop at Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument

We left Sedona at the crack of 11:00 for what was to be a short drive to the Grand Canyon. Bad idea, as we should have left much earlier, as I decided I found a few "must stops" along the way.

Tree Robbins, one of our friends back home, highly suggested we stop at Sunset Crater National Monument, which wasn't far off our route. I had never seen volcanic rock, so this was pretty exciting. Don, of course, had seen lots of volcanic rock when living as a teenager on the big rock in Hawaii. Sunset Crater is just north of Flagstaff and there had been a series of volcanic eruptions here between 1040 to 1100 that left behind cinder fields and lava flows --- lots and lots of pitch black rock. Driving up to the big volcano site it looked like someone had dumped hot black pavement in big waves along the sides of the road. The landscape was different than anything I had ever seen, but I seem to be saying that quite a bit on this trip.

 Our next stop was a scenic overlook at the Little Colorado River Gorge, which is controlled/maintained by the Navajo Tribal Park. Tree had also suggested this stop, especially if we wanted to look at crafts and jewelry made by the Navajos. I don't think we even noticed the view, as Indians had booths set up all over the place and the jewelry was shining brightly in the sunlight and luring us in for a look. We had fun learning about the making of horsehair pottery and watching young Indian girls stringing beads. We did purchase a few baubles.

We took Route 64 up from Cameron and entered the Grand Canyon at the Desert View entrance. The Ranger at the gate suggested we stop at the Watchtower for a quick walkabout before driving another 27 miles to the campground. Silly us. We still think that once we have reached a National Park, we are there. Not so in many cases, as many National Parks are huge and the Visitor Centers can be miles inside the park.

The Watchtower was built in 1932 and was our first glimpse of the Grand Canyon! Yes, this was a BIG WOW! Pinch me, are we really here and looking at this "GRAND" Canyon that we heard about all our lives? Lucky us!!! The Watchtower was designed by architect, Mary Elizabeth Colter, who we learned more about in a Ranger Talk the next day. Like Frank Lloyd Wright (and maybe many more architects of this era), she wanted "no discordant note against the time-eroded walls of this promontory," thus having everything blend into the natural setting. Inside the round Watchtower, which has the feeling of an ancient Pueblo kiva, are paintings on the walls by Hopi artists. I walked to the top of the tower, all 85 steps, to soak up the views which show the enormity and grandeur of the Grand Canyon, while Don took time to soak up Indian art on the walls.

View from top of Watchtower. Can you see the Colorado River snaking through the Canyon?

The clock was ticking and it was getting later and later, but how could we have missed any of these exciting stops? We arrived at the entrance to Mather Campground at 5:30 and had to wait in line to find our reserved campsite. When I had called to reserve the site, the NP reservationist mentioned that our site had been closed, but just recently reopened. When we pulled up to our site #169, it looked like it had just dried out with former campers leftover footprints in the mud. Since it wasn't due to rain while we were here, this site would be okay. The site was also quite small for our camper, but Don squeezed it into the site. Any closer to the left side and we would have opened the trailer door into a bunch of bushes. Parking the truck within the site's confines was another problem, but Don did his best to wedge it in and not have it stick out into the road too much.

We set up camp and then walked about a mile back to the campground entrance to check out the shuttle bus stop and routes around the park, as we wanted to get up early tomorrow morning catch sunrise over the Canyon. I think we were in bed a little after 8:00 PM.

Saturday, April 16th - Sunrise, Ranger Talk and Ranger Reprimands

Excitement about being at the Grand Canyon and knowing that we had to get up before the sun [sun-up around 6:35 AM], I woke about 4:00 and nudged Don to get up, too. We drove to Yaki Point and parked the truck on the side of the road, as others had beat us to the already filled parking lot. Since only buses are allowed to drive into Yaki Point, we put on our LL Bean LED hats, grabbed our packed backpack and Crazy Creek chairs and started walking. It was mighty dark out and we needed our lighted hats to find the road as we hiked about a mile into the Point.

After getting to the Canyon rim, we found a spot facing east and settled down in our chairs with our hot tea and bagels to wait for sunrise. We had a private spot, so it was a truly personal experience to be here at the Grand Canyon awaiting this early morning show. We were not disappointed!

We returned to the campground and reorganized ourselves and grabbed the shuttle bus over to Verkamp's Visitor Center for a Ranger-Led History Talk: People and the Canyon. Arriving early we had a few minutes to chat with young, cute Ranger Kristi, who was going to speak about the Canyon's famous architect, Mary Colter. We later learned that Kristi was given the nickname, "Special K," and that she had just landed a permanent Ranger position here at the GC. Kristi told us that she  previously had planned to be a mathematics professor at a college, as she had two high level mathematics master degrees, but after spending time as a seasonal ranger for a few summers, she decided the alter her career plans. Special K was quite an impressive young woman - full of life and enthusiasm!

 Ranger Kristi, in her talk, pointed out that many buildings around the Canyon have Mary Colter's  obsessive (compulsive?) hand in their designs. Ms. Colter was rather upset when she designed the bar area of the El Tovar Hotel and President Teddy Roosevelt gave a gift of a moose head to be hung in the guests' gathering area. She ranted, "There will be no moose here, as it will throw off the balance of the room." But how do you refuse a gift from a president? They resolved the problem by procuring a second moose head to achieve the balance Mary so desired. Special K said, "When tourists ask where can they find moose in the park, she sends them to the El Tovar. There are NO moose in the Grand Canyon." We did see some elk though.

Mary Colter's "Lookout Studio"

More Grand Canyon elk.

 After the tour, we took a mile hike along the rim of the Canyon, just to continue to soak up that special feeling of awe -  just the being here and seeing what we are seeing. Wish there was a way of bottling this feeling and keeping it close forever.

We returned to our camper, grabbed a quick lunch and decided to take a nap. Within less than an hour of zzzzzzzz's, this beautiful day started unraveling. Snoozing away, we were awaken by a banging on the trailer. Don got up to see an unhappy Ranger at our door. She firmly informed him that his truck was not properly parked and had to be moved immediately. Don went out and snuggled the truck even closer to the camper on more of an angle, trying to get it out of the road.

We both tried to get back to sleep, but I failed. Grabbing my book, I went out and set up a chair around the back of the camper near the muddy footprints and sat down to read. I watched kids playing hide and seek among the trees and listened to the birds and read some of my book. An hour later, up pulls another Ranger in a truck, so I walked out to the road to meet her. She was sweet and smiling as she told me that our truck had to be moved a mile away down by the showers, as all four wheels of the truck "must be on the paved area of the site." As we constantly get items in and out of the truck, I told her that parking it so far away from our campsite would not work. I asked if it be possible to get a bigger campsite. Still smiling, she said, "The campground is full and you MUST move the truck." There was no other solution to this issue. She handed me a warning and left.

I'm already tired and now I'm quite upset. Don comes out from his nap in the camper and finds me near tears. He heads down to the camp check-in area to see if there's another campsite or in search of another resolution. Happily he returns a half hour later to tell me we are moving to an outstanding site and that mistakenly we should never have been given the muddy site, as it is a tent site, not a camper site. The guy at the camp check-in was amazed that Don was able to get a camper our size into that little site. Geez. So when I booked our reservation at National Headquarters, the woman failed to select an appropriate site, even though I had told her we needed a 22 foot trailer site. How would we have known this was a tent-only site and why didn't either Ranger know this? Arguhhhhhh.

A moving we will go ---- About an hour plus later, we have a new, beautiful campsite and we are so done for today. We had hoped to go watch sunset over the Canyon after our nap, but that wasn't going to happen tonight. Don made a campfire and sang to me, while I made dinner. All was right with the world once again!