Travel Tips
- Reserve El Torva early. It is very popular that you would not able to find a table without reservation.
- Grand View trail is a bit under maintenance but the trail is very adventurous and worth to hiking down.
- East entrance receives less much less traffic than south entrance. If driving from I-89 makes sense to you, come into the Park from East entrance. Otherwise, arrive south entrance as early as possible. The line starts piling up after 8:00AM.
- parking in the Village is a serious problem. Park lot is rarely available at El Tova area. It must be your lucky day that you can find one there. If you are a visitor not staying over night inside the park, depending on your arrive time, your chance of parking your car varies. You can follow generally rules: First never try El Tova area. Second, if arriving early, try Visitor Center and then Market Plaza and then any where Blue shuttle stops. If arriving in late afternoon, most likely you can find a parking lot at the Visitor Center and Market Plaza fairly easily.
- For accommodation, staying inside the park is highly recommended. If you stay outside the Park, stay as closed to the park at possible and come into the Park early next day.
- when hiking down the Canyon, hiking back to the top is not fun at all. Please be aware of the Park’s warning
- Restaurants are pact in the midday. Consider to bring your own meal or buy from the general store at Market Plaza. Price of deli and grocery are very reasonable. If El Tova restaurant is on your list, make a reservation when your hotel is final.
- Train is one commute option into Grand Canyon Village.
- Biking is a very good alternative of touring places bus goes if it fit.
Bright Angel trailhead is near the parking lot of Bright Angel Lodge. But, don’t ever have an idea of parking over there. The time searching for a parking may already compensate commute time from other main parking lot at Visitor Center or Market Plaza. If you are Village hotel guests and find a spot around, better stay tuned even though the distance is not right next to the hotel. Parking around train depot is easy to pull luggage to the hotel and short.
Hermit road is closed to private vehicles Mar 1 to Nov 30. Hermits Rest bus is frequently and very convenient to tour attractions along the road. Just hopping off the bus at a stop and measure arrive time of next bus, you can effectively finish the whole route. I would recommend to stop at Powell Point, Hopi Point, and Mohave Point then turning back. Hopi and Powell are very closed. If time allows, you can go further to Hermits Rest and even Hermit Trail.
You can group Yaki Point and South Kaibab Thail on the same day. We already pay our fair share of hiking into canyon through Bright Angel Trail and didn’t take on this. It is also a good trail option per others’ recommendation. Be aware of orange bus stop order. South Kaibab Trailhead arrives first then Yaki Point. You can not ride the bus back to the trail without backing to the Visitor Center.
For sunset, are good options. We go Yavapai Point. The place was very windy and cold in April. Bring a jacket or blanket with you. There are plenty of space for big crowd even though it is a popular place near the Visitor Center. Canyon sunset view is not that impressive since canyon is dark when sun is going down. We slowly walk back to the park lot at the Visitor Center along the Rim Trail.
Grandview Trail is my favorite trail and a less beaten route even though the trail is not well maintained and a bit of dangerous. We only walked down for 20 minutes but already enjoy every corner very much. If doing it again, I would take the trail in the morning and go down more to the forest area (about an hour down per the suggestion from a hiker.
We planed a short stop at Duck on a Rock, but it turned out that we spent 30 minutes more there. A elk surprised us at the edge of cliff just couple yards away from where we took photos. His skin color is so blend into the background that we didn’t notice him a bit until he moved. I guess no other visitors noticed the animal until his move. At the time of encounter, we are not quite sure what it is. It looks like a deer. But park ranger told us on the other day that it is an Elk that almost disappears and now the park is trying to bring them back to the Canyon.
There are many viewpoints along Desert View Drive to Dessert View Watchtower at East entrance. The watchtower has the best canyon view among south rim in my opinion. Watchtower inside shows history. There is no park shuttle to Dessert View Watchtower though.
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