Grand Canyon National Park is CLOSED until further notice, due to public health concerns (COVID-19) All visitor facilities, trails, and roads, including Highway 64 are closed until further notice. Closures will be in effect 24-hours a day/7-days a week.
The Grand Canyon National Park can only truly be experienced in person to fully appreciate is size and scope. This unique combination of color and grandeur that follows the Colorado River for 277 miles and is up to 18 miles wide and a mile deep. The Grand Canyon overwhelms the senses through its immense size.
When approaching from the south you cannot see the Grand Canyon until you are almost on the rim. It makes me wonder what the first people though when migrating to new lands. The immense size of it might be enough to make me say “to hell with it, we have reached the end of the world”. Seriously, this is one big hole in the ground.
The History of the Grand Canyon
Taking millions of years to form, the canyon is a result of time and the Colorado River. It flows down the western slope of the Rocky Mountains causing constant erosion by the Colorado River over millions of years. Helping out are plate tectonics, the geologic uplift.
The Havasuw `Baaja, known as the people of the blue-green waters, are the traditional guardians of the Grand Canyon. Related to the Yuman, the Havasupai have from the beginning, inhabited the Grand Canyon and its environs.
By 1919 with the establishment of the Grand Canyon National Park, the Tribe was restricted to 518 acres, 5 miles wide and 12 miles long in a side canyon. The Tribe has since had returned to them 188,077 acres of their former homelands which makes up their reservation today.
The Havasupai Reservation is located in Coconino County, at the southwest corner of the Grand Canyon National Park. The nearest community to the Reservation is Peach Springs, 64 miles southwest from Hualapai Hilltop.
Entry fees into the park are minimal and well worth the price of admission. Depending on what you want to do in the park will dictate how much it will cost and how hard you must work to get it. Most people choose to drive along the rim and stop for scenic views and vistas along the way. Some people experience it by helicopters and others by kayaking or riding a donkey down the side of the canyon. Regardless of how you see the canyon remember to be safe and respect the environment.
Some say you can camp free in the Grand Canyon National Park but I have you to see an official website say that. I do know you can find free camping in the Kaibab National Forest just outside the park on the southern side. There is plenty of free camping in Arizona but I do not know if the park is on that list.
