To the North Rim

As we were finishing dinner last night, a couple from the next campsite came by. They had a 2007 Roadtrek 190 Versatile and wanted to say hello to fellow Roadtrekkers. In our conversation with them, we talked about where each of us were going and they mentioned that they, too, were going to the North Rim and had made reservations at the campground, which were hard to get. This was news to us, as we had blithely assumed that it was after the season and there'd be something available. We hadn't any trouble at the South Rim last time we were here.

This caused a bit of concern. Interestingly, we had great Verizon Mobile Internet access at Bryce (but I still forgot to send pending Speedy Journal posts). So I went online to see if we could reserve at the North Rim campground—Oops! There were no open sites for nearly two weeks and, even then, there were only sporadic sites available. This could be a problem. Just to be sure, I also checked the openings at the Mather Campground on the South Rim for the period when we were to meet Harry & Sally. There were sites available, but not many. We didn't realize that this is a very popular time at the Grand Canyon. Even though the families are gone, the retirees and Europeans are out in force. It was late and there wasn't much we could do at the time, so we figured we could wait until today.

We started the morning with long warm showers at the general store shower block to clear our heads (clean them, too). I called Harry & Sally and explained the Mather Campground situation and I agreed to make the reservations. Then the technology gremlin raised its head. The great Verizon access just disappeared. I couldn't even get a connection. We even tried to use the Internet access that they had at the visitor center, but my Mac just wouldn't correctly connect with it. Time was ticking on, so we decided to try again when we reached Kanab, a largish town just before the Arizona border.

Off we went to Kanab and then the North Rim. We got to Kanab by mid-morning. There is a cafe/bookstore/outdoor gear store there that we had stopped in before. We stopped again. It was still a great little store with good coffee, so we went in and ordered a mid-morning cafe latte and hooked up to their local network. While I tried to make the South Rim reservations, Ellen went across the street to Glazier's Market, which looked like a pretty good grocery.

I was finally successful making reservations for next week, but we still were unclear on what we could do on the North Rim. We even called the reservation number to see about cancelations, but they were unable to help. On the way into the North Rim, the road goes through the Kaibab National Forest and there were a couple of campgrounds along the way, one was nearly 50 miles from the rim and the other a little less than twenty. Hopefully, there would be something there. the further one, Jacob Lake, was reservable and when I checked on-line, it had many openings, so that was the fallback. We could only hope the other one, De Motte Campground, which was first-come first-serve was not one that filled early.

Glazier's was a much better market than Mike's in Panguitch and we were able to restock our pantry and refrigerator for the next national park, so onward we continued. It was a very pleasant drive to the park. As we entered the National Forest, the road began to twist through the hills, it was uphill all the way to Jacob Lake. There is a Forest Service visitor center there, so I stopped in while Ellen made lunch. The ranger indicated that De Motte rarely filled at this time of the year and even pointed out some dispersed camping spots near the campground, if by some chance it was filled.

We decided to give it a try and after lunch continued our drive through the forest. We were in a high Montane forest of fir and aspen. Through much of the drive the trees seemed spaced as though in a park and there were large meadows along the way as well. There were also sections that were burned out from seemingly recent wildfires. It was a great drive to the De Motte Campground. The campground had many free spaces, so we knew that this was a definite option for tonight. Since we seemed to be on a bit of a roll, we decided to continue on to the National Park and at least inquire at the North Rim campground.

It took anther 25 minutes to reach the North Rim visitor area and the campground, which was fully booked for tonight. I talked to the ranger abut cancelations and he said that they happened and it varies day by day. Today they had six in the morning, but they were quickly filled. He suggested that out best bet was to return in the morning after 8:30am when they would know if there were any overnight and, if that was not successful, to come back about mid-day, when they'd know if anyone left early. We'll give that a try tomorrow.

As we were already there, we decided to poke around the area a bit. After a brief stop at the visitor center, we walked down to the North Rim Lodge and out to the Bright Angel Point Trail, a short half-mile walk along a narrow ridge that ends with spectacular views of the canyon, not that the view from the lobby of the lodge wasn't pretty spectacular. After returning from that stroll, we noticed that there was an upcoming ranger talk on condors on the deck of the lodge, so we grabbed a bit of refreshment from the Roughrider Saloon and relaxed waiting for the talk. It was worth the wait.

After the talk, we drove back out to the De Motte Campground, found a nice flat site and settled in for the evening.