SUNDAY’S ADVENTURE
On Sunday, John and I packed up the Santa Fe with supplies and headed down to the Grand Canyon. The Grand Canyon is always, um…, grand, but it is too often overpopulated by tourists. This is especially true at the south rim and more or less true at the north rim. But at Toroweap, you can view the Grand Canyon in solitude.
You access Toroweap by dirt road. It took us about 3 1/2 hours to get there from St. George, UT, about 90 miles away. At one point you drive up a freaky, edge of the mountain one lane dirt road. I know, doesn’t sound like anything I’d do, but I did. I was driving and managed not to go over the edge and plummet into the desert below. The dirt road is not too bad and at some places you can go 40 mph but at some places about 5-10 mph. In fact, the last 7 miles took a half an hour. Anyway, depending on the altitude you drive through high desert, juniper-pinion forest or alpine forest. Pretty cool.
When we got to the rim, there were two other cars there. One with two older couples left shortly after we got there. The other, which consisted of a man and his three wives (remember this is Utah) left a little while later. And then we were all alone. All alone at the edge of the Grand Canyon. Just us. We took some time to explore, hopping from rock to rock along the rim. There are no guard rails. View at your own risk. Lava falls cascade frozen in time into the canyon from nearby extinct cinder cones. Way below is the Colorado River.
What a great way to spend the day! Even though it was a rough ride there and back, it was totally worth it. As much as I wish there weren’t so many people viewing these sites, it is amazing to me that there are so many who don’t make the trip out here to see how beautiful this part of the country is.
I just discovered that I managed to lose most of the pictures we took. Oh, grrrr. Here’s the only one that didn’t get trashed.
Okay, just tried to post a picture but it didn’t work, so here’s a link to a picture of the Grand Canyon from Toroweap.