We left the De Motte Campground in Kaibab National Forest before breakfast, around 7:00am. Yesterday, the ranger at the North Rim Campground said that they would know if they had any cancelations when they opened in the morning. We wanted to be there early.
We arrived around 7:30, parked and made breakfast. I noticed the window at the registration building was open, so Iwalked over and talked with the rangers who said they would be know by 8am, earlier than I was told yesterday. We had breakfast. As we were finishing up, I noticed that a couple of people were already waiting in line, not wanting to be frozen out, I joined them.
At 8am, they opened up and we were able to get a site for the night, but could not get the permit and occupy the site until 11am. As I was leaving, I noticed that they hadn't included the Senior Pass discount and went back. They said that they'd try to fix it by 11am, when the check-ins were allowed and we should come back then. I was now about 8:15 so we drove down to the lodge and the rim.
We first stopped on the porch of the lodge where there were chairs along a stone wall overlooking the canyon. As well as a spectacular view, they have good cell phone service from this point (something about direct line-of-sight from the South Rim). It is my mother's birthday and I wanted to call and wish her well. When she answered, she was just reading my most recent posts to the Speedy Journal. We wished her a happy birthday and got current on all the family news. We also took the opportunity to call of friends, Harry & Sally, to find out how they were progressing on their way west. They were stopped for lunch in St.Louis, so we should be meeting on the South Rim next Tuesday.
We the decided to walk the Transept Trail, while we waited until 11am. It runs along the rim for about 1.5 miles. It was mostly level, with a couple of short uphill sections with views of the canyon along the way. It was also a good bird walk. The trail passed through the forest and there was much twittering and flitting about as we walked along. Mountain Chickadees, Nuthatches, Western Bluebirds and Stellar's Jays were the most common birds we saw, there were others, but they were too quick for us to identify.
They trail ended at the campground and it was just about 11am, so we walked over to the registration booth to see if they had straightened out my reservation payment and pick up a permit for the night. They had fixed the payment. As she was giving the receipt to me, I asked if there was any possibility of further nights. When I was talking with the ranger yesterday, he said that campers frequently left early, before their reserved period ended, but they wouldn't know until after check-out time at 10am.
It was our lucky day! There was a cancelation for a three day reservation and we could have it. We now have a site here until Sunday. We picked up the permit and headed back to Speedy, still parked at the lodge. There is a more direct trail from the campground to the lodge, called the Bridal Path. We took it and a mile and a half later were back in the parking lot.
As we were walking back to the van, there was a fellow with a BMW R1150GS a few spaces down from us. We stopped to talk, since that was my previous model of motorcycle. His name was Dominick and he was from Palm Coast, Florida, which was the town where Ellen bought her motorcycle. He knew Frank & Bonnie, the couple from whom she bought her bike. He was on his way back from completing an Iron Butt 50CC, a Coast-to-Coast ride in under 50 hours. He did it from Daytona to San Diego in 46 hours and was now taking his time going back.
After talking bikes and riding for a while, we picked up Speedy, drove back to the campground, found our site and had lunch. We'd had our hike for the day and it was time for a little auto touring. There is a road out to Point Imperial, the highest point in the park, and to Cape Royal, about 45 miles round trip. The road was narrow and very twisty, but the views were awesome.
As we were driving out to Point Imperial, we noticed that we had picked up a hitchhiker. A House Wren had flown into Speedy, probably while we were having lunch at the campsite. I first noticed it in the mirror as it was sitting on a pillow looking out the back window. When we stopped at Point Imperial, I opened the back door and it flew out, only about 10 miles from where it flew in. From Point Imperial, the view was panoramic, from the Vermillion Cliffs of the Escalante National Monument in north all the way around to the South Rim of Grand Canyon and far back onto the plateau behind it.
The longest branch of the road went out to Cape Royal with several overlooks on the way out with views of the canyon to the east. At Cape Royal, there is a path out to the rim at two points. The first, Angels Window, goes out on a narrow tall fin of rock, where you pass over a natural large window in the body of the fin. It is less than three feet wide where the path passes across the narrowest part of the fin. You can look straight down several hundred feet on each side of the fin at that point.
The second viewpoint at the end of the trail looks out at the South Rim of the canyon and down to the Colorado River at a wide curve called the Unkar Delta. There were also close-up views of some of the major formations in the canyon, particularly the Freya Castle, Vishnu Temple and Wotans Throne, which are very far away when you are looking from the South Rim.
We finished up our tour with a stop at the Wallhala Glades, an archeological site of a 900 year old pueblo not far from Cape Royal. It was a small farming community with about 15 rooms, nine of which were visible in the excavation. The research indicates that these were most likely summer farms on the Wallhala Plateau and the inhabitants retreated to the Unkar Delta in the canyon, on the river, in the winter.
After a long, twisty, slow ride back to the campground, we finally set up camp (leveling Speedy), had dinner and settled in for the night. A good day on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.
Grand Canyon Photos
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