Wald's World On Wheels: Grand Canyon National Park

It's not a Griz-Wald family vacation without a trip to the Grand Canyon! Katherine and I visited the Grand Canyon 19 years ago for the first time. Coming back with the kids was a blast. Maybe I didn't appreciate it before, or maybe I just forgot how massive this canyon is, but it was just an awesome view.

What an amazing work of art that is right in America's backyard. The Grand Canyon is the number one most visited park in the entire parks service...and it shows. The crowds at the park were almost reminiscent of our trip to NYC! The diversity and number of visitors to the park on a daily basis is a true testament of this uniquely American destination. People come from all over the world to see the Grand Canyon. On the day we visited there was barely a parking spot at the visitor center and we had to wait in line to get pictures from some of the more popular lookout points in the park.

In addition to all of the hiking trails available in the park, there is also a very well run bus system to take park visitors out to the various lookout points to get different views of the canyon. We took a bus from the visitor center to Hopi Point and spent about an hour exploring the different views from there. We then hopped on the bus back to Mohave Point and walked the south rim about 3 miles back to the visitor center at Mather Point.

The Grand Canyon is a mile deep, which I didn't realize. That means the Empire State Building could fit end to end three times before it reaches the rim of the canyon...that's one big hole! At roughly 7,000 feet above sea level it also gets pretty cold there year round.