Cross Country Day 21: Kanab, Utah – Grand Canyon National Park – Kanab, Utah

Day 21 Kanab, Utah – Grand Canyon National Park – Kanab, Utah

Visiting Grand Canyon from the north is somewhat difficult for a couple reasons. First, there are only a couple towns to the north of the Grand Canyon. Second, these towns are very far away from the park, partly because the park is so big. Kanab, approximately 80 miles away from the North Rim, was the nearest town we could find decently priced lodging, so our morning commute to the North Rim took us a couple hours.

The ride to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon surprised me – again, I was shocked at how high we had to climb. Grand Canyon is about 8,500 feet above sea level, and Kanab is about 5,000 feet, so the ol’ PX had to climb 3,000+ feet (again)! Needless to say, the ride to the Grand Canyon was slower then expected, however it was comforting to know the ride back would be “faster”.

The Grand Canyon is stunning, as you all probably expected. It is an extension of Zion National park – it simply overpowers you with sheer size and magnitude. The canyons are enormous, and drop down thousands of feet. I walked the Angel’s Bright Trail, and at times, was clinging to the trail side rails as the edges dropped down a LOOOONG way (I didn’t even want to look – I don’t do well with heights). While the Grand Canyon is enormous, there actually isn’t much you can really do there in a day – there were only four view points, which we thoroughly enjoyed, but besides taking a mule ride into the canyon (I would never want to put a poor mule through that), you basically relax and enjoy the scenery. The lodge on the north side is very nice – we had lunch (decently priced – they could charge more) overlooking the canyon, and enjoyed a coffee while relaxing in lawn chairs on the deck.

The bluish/grey haze you see in the pictures is smog that blows into the canyon from Mexico and Los Angeles. . Sad to see smog so far east from Los Angeles. It made it difficult to take good pictures but we did the best we could

After visiting all the viewpoints, we headed back toward Kanab, Utah for the night. Unfortunately, there is no other roads from the North Rim that lead west, so we had to backtrack to prepare for our next journey – tomorrow we head for Las Vegas!