GRAND CANYON NATIONAL PARK, Ariz. — It doesn’t have to snow here to make it gorgeous. If you haven’t been to the Grand Canyon, for sure you’ve seen pictures of the place. Awesome pictures.
Snow in the pictures? Not usually.
But …
With the exception of the Grand Canyon in summer — and the “exception” part is debatable — there is no grander scenic wonder in the United States than the Grand Canyon in winter.
When there’s snow.
Which, for those of you who like to plan, is never a sure thing.
For the record, here’s how we caught it just right — and there’s a lesson in this for everybody.
I was doing some travel-related stuff last December in other parts of Arizona, a state that even in December should have been sunny and dry, this being sunny and notoriously dry Arizona.
Instead, it was unsunny and wet. Very wet. We’re talking coming-down-in-sheets, being-forced-off-the-Interstate wet, which is the only excuse for overnighting at a cheap motel in Casa Grande.
And now, we quote beloved Austrian philosopher Julie Andrews:
“Reverend Mother always says when the Lord closes a door, somewhere he opens a window.”
In other words, if it’s raining bobcats and coyotes in, say, Scottsdale … children?
“If it’s raining bobcats and coyotes in Scottsdale, and it’s winter — maybe it’s snowing up north at the Grand Canyon!”
Indeed. Look at these pictures … and at what precipitation in higher elevations can bring to us all.
Comparing the Grand Canyon in winter to the Grand Canyon in summer is a little like comparing two very different kids you love equally. The joy in just being here and looking down at it from the rim, or up from the canyon floor, or up and down from anyplace in between, in any season, is unconditional.
Well, one condition, especially in winter: Dress right.
Casey Murph is in charge of the mules that, year-round, carry people into the Grand Canyon and, in a perfect world, back out of it. On this barely post-dawn December morning, in a light snow, he was addressing a dozen or so would-be riders who had paid significant amounts of cash (from $139) for the privilege of sitting unnaturally astride a famously stubborn mammal for several hours in temperatures that would freeze vodka.
“Everybody going to be prepared for this?” Murph asked in his most insistent drill-sergeant screech. “Are you all dressed warm enough? You all have appropriate gloves, something to keep your ears warm? Warm clothes, right?
“Folks, do not underestimate what you’re getting yourselves into …”
That goes for pedestrians as well. If you’re dressed properly, the Grand Canyon in winter is close to being the Grand Canyon in summer. But when the elements happen fortuitously, it’s also marvelous snow-flocked trees and snow-lined pathways, frosted canyon walls, visible breath, lacy glistening ice sculptures, fresh animal tracks, elk so close you could touch them if that weren’t illegal — and something else.
“It’s more peaceful and quiet,” says National Park Service ranger Dawn Majewski. “It can get very busy on the rim in the summer.”
Un-busy as it is in hard-freeze conditions, don’t expect it to be just you and the canyon. The world won’t let that happen.
Sure, close to 20,000 daily visitors can flood the park (figuratively speaking) in July — but even on a frigid day in early December or any time in January, you’ll likely have 4,000 or so scattered about. (There’s usually an upward bump during Christmas break.)
On this visit, among those enjoying the white-trimmed magnificence were a couple from Japan celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary, a tour group from France, a family from Australia, a large reunion of Vietnamese who had rebuilt lives all over the U.S. and the Panozzos, canyon veterans from suburban Cary.
“I love it,” said Margaret Panozzo of the wintry-ness. “It adds that extra dimension.”
“The colors are better too,” said husband Bob. “I don’t know why I think that.”
Artists, professional outdoors photographers, decorators and others who play with light and color for a living could probably explain the phenomenon, and vividly. Amateurs like travel writers bored easily by technicalities are left to spout what they see: impossibly clear air plus brilliant natural hues set against startling whiteness, all this made even more pleasing when remnant clouds move out and the sun brightens absolutely everything.
And at night, when the moonlight hits the snow … oh, my.
Other weather-related practicalities have to be mentioned here.
Paved trails along the rim are cleared of snow when practical, making leisurely, scenic ambling easy for most folks. But the unpaved switchback trails into the canyon that date to long-ago mining operations — including Bright Angel, the trail hikers share with the mules (and the stuff left by those mules) — are something else.
An attempt one morning to walk a few dozen yards down that trail, with its sheer drop-off, in inappropriate shoes literally brought one normally fearless travel writer to his knees lest he go over the side or, worse, see his company-owned camera crash into an unsuspecting jackass.
“There may be a little snow at the top of the trails,” concedes another NPS ranger, David Smith, “but in general, so long as you’re prepared — so long as you have some crampons (spikes favored by mountaineers) or traction devices for your feet — you’re fine going down into the canyon.”
(The mules, by the way, wear devices too. “They’re shod with cleats,” says Murph. “They grip the ice quite well.” It’s one of the reasons, he says, that more than a century of recreational riding has gone by “with never a single fatal accident from the back of a mule in the Grand Canyon.”)
Now, the canyon doesn’t fill up with snow. That’s a big hole we’re talking about.
The whiteness can stick to the upper walls and complicate trails for a mile or so — but when temps are in the teens up at 7,000 feet on the rim, it can be in the 50s down at the bottom by Phantom Ranch. The Colorado River, which contributed mightily to creating the Grand Canyon, never gets ice-clogged down there; it’s why though warmer months are prime rafting season, winter raft trips through the canyon aren’t unheard of.
And even up on the rim, snow “melts a lot quicker than it does back home,” says ranger Majewski, a Michigander.
Which is why, when I called her number during the rainstorms down south, she said: “You’d better get up here.”
Southwest lifers know how strange northern Arizona weather can be. Flagstaff, whose slopes can be heavenly for skiers, was virtually snowless for the two winters before this one. Majewski remembers one recent Christmas when temperatures at the park hit 60 degrees.
“New Year’s Day, we were sitting out on the rim with our champagne and our shrimp — the whole thing.”
Again, most of the time we’re talking the same canyon from season to season, only in winter it’s colder.
Also most of the time: Aside from Thanksgiving weekend and Christmastime, no matter what the weather, from November well into February crowds will be down, noise will be down, parking will be easier and, unlike in July and August, chances of suffering from dehydration and other heat-related ailments will be (like the temperatures, sometimes) close to zero.
For sure: Snow or not, barring the odd fog or something else freakish, the Grand Canyon will be grand.
But if you really luck out …
IF YOU GO:
GETTING THERE: The South Rim of the Grand Canyon, which is open all year, is a 50-mile drive from Williams, Ariz., 79 miles from Flagstaff, 220 miles from Phoenix, 335 miles from Tucson and 278 miles from Las Vegas. (The North Rim, with more severe weather due to higher elevations, closes in winter.) You can make it there and back from Phoenix in a day, but that would be silly, especially in winter with its short days and uncertain weather conditions.
Bus service to the park is available from Williams and Flagstaff (www.flagstaffexpress.com, 800-563-1980; www.openroadtours.com, 877-226-8060); and special tour-train service (via the Grand Canyon Railway, www.thetrain.com; 800-843-8724) is offered out of Williams.
By the way: If you think you’ve seen the canyon by just taking that popular helicopter ride over the place from Vegas — well, you’re wrong. It’s like flying over the Vatican.
GETTING AROUND: Even in nasty weather, roads within and to the park generally are kept clear; parking, often a hassle in summer, in winter is a breeze, both in lots and at overlooks. Visitors who arrive without a car can get around much of the park on free shuttle buses, which run every 15-30 minutes — but in most cases some walking will be required to get from the bus stop to rim viewpoints.
Unless the conditions get ridiculous, hiking never stops, with trails — both the paved rim trails and the unpaved ones into the canyon — maintained year-round. (The paved trails are relatively level and, when cleared of ice and snow, good for folks with accessibility issues.) Mule trips into the canyon, often booked solid in warmer months, run throughout the winter (conditions permitting) and are usually easier to book in those months, sometimes even at the last minute (888-297-2757; www.grandcanyonlodges.com).
Yes, there are winter raft trips on the Colorado, but they’re irregularly scheduled; contact the park office (see below) for details.
STAYING THERE: The best option is staying within the park; one central booking office (888-297-2757; www.grandcanyonlodges.com), under the Xanterra umbrella, handles them all.
The 102-year-old El Tovar Hotel, practically on the rim, is the classic experience. Rooms (doubles $142 and up, subject to change) are nice, well-equipped but not Ritz-Carlton posh, and there’s no elevator. And the rooms can be small. The price of classic-ness. Bright Angel Lodge (opened in 1935; a couple of lodge-controlled cabins date to the 1800s) has rooms from $52 (no private facilities) to $239 (with). Newer and well located between El Tovar and Bright Angel are Kachina and Thunderbird Lodges, where perfectly acceptable rooms with parking-lot views run $139; rooms facing the canyon run $152, but not all the views are knockout. At Maswik Lodge, if it’s open — and it may not be in winter — you’ll pay $78 and up, depending on degree of rusticity; it’s a quarter-mile jog to the rim (or you can catch the shuttle), but many of the rooms were beautifully updated in 2006. Mather Campground ($15) and adjacent Trailer Village ($28) are open in winter. Yavapai Lodge, at 358 rooms largest of the lodging complexes, is closed most of the winter.
Closest lodgings outside the national park are in Tusayan, about 2 miles south of the park entrance and 61/2 miles from the actual canyon. There you’ll find several decent-looking motels, including a Best Western, Holiday Inn Express, Quality Inn and a Grand Hotel, which looks like a Wisconsin Dells indoor water park resort but isn’t. Flagstaff (especially) and Williams (which actively touts its Route 66 heritage) are loaded with rooms — though good weekend ski conditions, when they happen, can tighten things up in Flag.
DINING HERE: Xanterra, which controls food service in the park as well as lodgings, lists 10 places serving sustenance within the boundaries, but some are limited (the Canyon Coffee House is basically morning coffee and muffins, etc.) and many are seasonal. Open all year is the attractive El Tovar Dining Room, most formal (in an informal way) of the venues, with entrees generally in the mid-$20s and up. The Arizona Room, alongside Bright Angel Lodge, is a few dollars cheaper and very good but nowhere near as atmospheric as El Tovar, and it’s usually closed from New Year’s through mid-February. Bright Angel Restaurant, in Bright Angel Lodge, is a casual all-purpose restaurant. The rest, scattered among the lodgings, are mainly sandwiches, pizza and, at Maswik Lodge, a cafeteria.
No reason to drive to Tusayan just to eat — but if you base there, you’ll have a few restaurants to choose from plus a McDonald’s and a Wendy’s. In Williams, try the family friendly Pine Country Restaurant; in Flagstaff, if you like good steaks and a sense of place, seek out the Horsemen Lodge Restaurant.
INFORMATION: Grand Canyon National Park, 928-638-7888; www.nps.gov/grca
Tags:
amp,
crampons,
rta,
s south,
sculptures,
sense of place,
weather conditions
0
