The Grandeur of The Grand Canyon

This post was chosen as a Tangy Tuesday pick by BlogAdda

The only wonder of the world that I have covered (yet) – the majestic Grand Canyon! I was completely in awe of the force of nature that carved out the canyon millions of years ago. It still sends shivers down my body when I think about standing there and wondering how on earth these would have formed!Just a day after landing in Las Vegas, we were on our way to the South rim of the Grand Canyon (we were to come back to LV and stay there for 3 days ending on Christmas eve, to enjoy the celebrations in the city).

Though many tourists specifically go to the West rim to do the Skywalk, we left it out intentionally since it is too expensive at $80.94 per person for the Legacy Gold Package. Moreover, if you are not so sacrosanct about doing the ‘walk on the glass bridge,’ you get pretty much similar views of the canyon from the south rim too.

We stayed right outside the entrance to the South rim, at ‘The Grand Hotel at the Grand Canyon.’ The stay was amazing (it is the only 3-diamond hotel around the canyon) though the internet connectivity was terrible – reception told me it’s the same with any hotel there. I must mention, we normally book our stays very close to the main attraction since it becomes easy for me to cover the Sunrise and/or Sunset there. Even otherwise, I would rather spend a bit more to experience the place than drive an hour!

After refreshing ourselves up in the hotel, we headed straight to the Visitor Center. There are numerous benefits of asking the experts at the visitor center, even though we do enough research beforehand – at the very least, we stay current with the (mis)information we found online. Since we have the Annual Pass to all the National Parks in the United States (bought for $80 last year, applicable per vehicle), we didn’t have to pay additionally to enter the Canyon area.

For the curious, check out the short video that plays every few minutes at the visitor center that tells you how the canyons were formed. Once you are ready to experience the grandness of the canyon, start from the Mather Point, which is right behind the visitor center and is a must-see. You can walk right along the canyon using the ‘rim trail;’ but if you have limited time, either drive around or use their shuttles (for free).The other one not to be missed is the Yavapai Point and Geology Museum. The museum tells you pretty much everything you need to know about the canyon – how they formed, the rock-layers, visual artifacts, samples of rocks, and a long glass providing a magnificent view of the canyon right in front of you. You can even see the Colorado river (that formed the canyon) about a mile away.

We drove around and stopped at many viewpoints that are shown in the map above (taken from Grand Canyon official website). You never know which one can give you a great view depending on the time of the day. We were lucky to see some Elks and Deers too!If you go by the public opinion, other spots to definitely cover are Maricopa point, Powell point, and Hopi point. In fact, Hopi point is rated as the best for Sunset views, and I absolutely agree with it. I stood there in the chill of late-December to experience this sight!We spent around 4 hours before heading to the hotel and enjoying the luxuries of that too. For me, another Sunrise awaited in the majestic lap of nature!