“Grant Mohn, the director of operations for Grand Canyon Adventures, an outfitter based in Flagstaff, Ariz., said getting to the south entrance at the South Rim before the midmorning crush is crucial. “The biggest thing is to get to the park early,” Mr. Mohn said. A general rule of thumb, he added, is to arrive before 9 a.m.”
“After an evening in Flagstaff, we joined our “Do the Canyon” tour the next morning. The folks at Grand Canyon Adventures were very helpful right from the start. We had arranged for their 4 day coach tour and were able to park our rented car on their property while we were off galavanting.
Our tour took place in a very comfortable van. There were 6 of us – so lots of room to stretch out. Our guide, Jordan, was a knowledgable 30-something guy who obviously loved nature and the outdoors. He was very flexible and accommodating and went out of his way to make the adventure memorable.”
“As daylight waned the following evening, the hordes of tourists around the canyon’s South Rim quickly dissipated. Our guide, an astronomer from Grand Canyon Adventures, had brought along a small telescope, and while the light was still strong enough, he trained it on the Colorado River, a thin, glittering vein of silver on the canyon’s bottom.”
“While we’ll always have a special place for Amy’s Baking Co., it’s kind of hard to pick anything that isn’t the world’s greatest, most scenic hole in the ground. Luckily, it’s also one of the world’s most gorgeous holes in the ground, too, and justification for generations of hostile American family road trips. Many a Griswoldian father has been loathed for dragging his kids to this donkey-infested wonder. And many a nostalgic adult has thanked him for it 10 years later with their own kids packed into a car.”
“‘With social media and the internet, you see beautiful pictures of this place all over that really soften what people are going up against in these natural spaces,” says Korey Seyler, managing partner at the Grand Canyon Adventures, on the south rim. How to survive the Grand Canyon, therefore: Don’t underestimate it. This may be a National Park, but it’s also a wild place.”
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