Grand Canyon

Itinerary

Las Vegas – Grand Canyon – Hopi Indian Reserve – Antelope Canyon – Arches National Park

Map/Direction

Maps and Directions are given when entering Grand Canyon and Arches National Park, but it’s hard to find them on the internet, so I put them on:

Las Vegas: http://picasaweb.google.com/lium.intl/LasVegas#

Arches National Park: http://picasaweb.google.com/lium.intl/ArchesNationalPark#

Pictures

http://picasaweb.google.com/liumchina/GrandCanyonTripScenery#

Travel Notes

8/20 We arrived in Las Vegas at 2:15pm.

Arizona Landscape

Shuttle bus costs $6 to your hotel in downtown Las Vegas, but you can take the Rent-A-Car Shuttle Bus to Car Rental Center and change to bus No. 301 which costs only $3. It is not slower because it won’t make detours to all the hotels to drop off guests.

Other people recommended the Volcano and Treasure Island（TI）performance. Volcano is around 8pm, very interesting, but it is not as good as expected. TI’s performance drew a lot people because of all the beautiful girls and Universal Studio kind of settings.

TI Performance

It is the best show among all the hotels, maybe just second to the famous music fountain.

As for the shows, Jubilee might be better for Las Vegas. We went to the Blue Man Show, but even at half price, it is still more expensive than Chicago, and it is a little too serious for Las Vegas.

8/21 We took bus 301Duece to Car Rental Center early in the morning, and rented a Alamo economy, $168 for a week. Insurance is $19.9 if you don’t have one, $25 more per day for those who are younger than 25 years old, and Student Advantage card can be used for discount.

We set off at 11:30am, driving along I193. The trip bypasses Hover Dam. Some pictures would be sufficient for the visit. We arrived at Williams, the last town before entering Great Canyon, at around 5pm. There is a Safeway supermarket for replenish your supplies. You can buy a big bottle of water if you don’t have a big bottle to get water for the hiking. After Williams, it took more than 1 hour to Mather Campground.

Aug 22: The main trails are Bright Angel and Yaki. We started out at 9am from Bright Angel. There are two rest stops with toilet and water. Section between stops takes 1 hour to cover, and you need about 1 liter of water for that time period. Continue after the second stop, you can reach Indian

Interesting Look

Garden and Colorado River. It is said that it is really beautiful down at the bottom and Indians live there as well, but it is very difficult to complete a round trip if you don’t get up super early. Weather changes really fast. It started to rain on our way up, and the temperature dropped dramatically. A thick raincoat is very necessary just in case you are stuck in the middle. There are a lot of view points along I64 (Desert View Rd), and Yavapai Point is recommended – very open view, and you can even see a corner of Colorado River and Indian Garden. Another good sight is the Desert View Point on the east-most point. It is more than 20 miles away and views here are a little different. A flat-top mountain and Painted Desert can be seen far away floating in the mist. The sunset should be beautiful here, but we are not lucky enough to see a good one. After a couple of days spent here, I feel the sunset at Great Canyon is not as good as Beijing Jian Kou Great Wall or Ankor Wat, maybe it is just because of the cloudy weather.

Aug 23: We started along I164 to Hopi Indian Reserve and Navajo National Monument. After turning on I264, it is a flat desert with no end in sight.

Vast Land

We lost clue where to go when we reached Hotevilla, a small village with scattering houses, some of them look like being deserted with cars buried halfway in the sand.

Deserted Car

We stopped, knocked on the door of a local family, and it turned out to be our lucky day. The owner of the house, whose name is Kenny Quanimptewa, told us that there is an Indian dancing event on the market. He asked us if we’d like to go have a look and offered to take us by car. The road is bumpy and sandy. He reminded us many times that photos are not allowed. When we got there, dancing hadn’t started yet, and to our surprise, local Indians prepared food for all visitors. It is simple but very delicious. We sat on the roof watching the dance the whole afternoon until 6pm.

Aug 24: We got up early at 5am to watch sunrise at Yavapai, but it is not very good at this spot. We continue our trip to Antelope Canyon. Best tours are around noon when sunlight can shoot into the roof hole forming mysterious light poles, which is the biggest attraction.

Antelope Canyon

The tour took two and half hours. We left at 2pm to Arches National Park. Monument Valley can be seen on the way, very impressive scenery.

Aug 25: We again got up at 5pm, hoping to see a beautiful sunrise, but it is not very impressive either. A better plan is to go into Devils Garden Trail before sunrise to see the stones reflecting red beams from the sun. The highlight is Landscape Arch and Delicate Arch.

They are completely supernatural work of the nature. A round trip to Delicate Arch requires 2 hours under strong sunlight and no water available.

Delicate Arch

Aug 26: We did a brief tour in Las Vegas. Interesting casinos includes Luxor, MGM Grand and Flamingo.

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