Grand Canyon

The Grand Canyon has been home to Native peoples for thousands of years, and eleven tribes hold ties to it today, among them the Havasupai, Hualapai, Hopi, Navajo (Diné), Zuni, and Southern Paiute. The Havasupai, whose name means people of the blue-green water, still live deep within a side canyon of the gorge, the only community inside the canyon itself. To the Hopi, the canyon is a sacred place bound up in their story of emergence into this world.

The Ancestral Puebloan peoples farmed the rims and inner terraces long ago, leaving granaries, dwellings, and rock art still visible in places. When the National Park was established in 1919 much of this land was taken from the tribes, and the history of that loss is part of the canyon's story too. Today the tribes remain active partners in caring for the canyon, and the Havasupai, Hualapai, and Navajo lands border or lie within it.

The Colorado River did the cutting. Over roughly the last five to six million years the river sliced downward through the Colorado Plateau as the whole region slowly rose, and the running water, grinding sand and gravel, wore the rock away far faster than it could heal. Rain, frost, and side streams widened the gorge from there, which is why the canyon is so much broader than the river that made it.

The layers you see are older by far than the canyon itself. Near the top sits the pale Kaibab Limestone, laid down under an ancient sea, and the bands step down through sandstones and shales to the dark, twisted Vishnu Schist at the very bottom, close to two billion years old. Reading the wall from rim to river is like turning the pages of the planet's history in order, which is exactly why geologists come here from around the world.

The canyon is really several worlds stacked on top of each other. The forested rims hold ponderosa pine, mule deer, elk, and the tassel-eared Abert's and Kaibab squirrels, while California condors, the largest land birds in North America, ride the updrafts along the walls after being brought back from the edge of extinction. Watch the rim edges for these huge black birds with numbered wing tags.

Drop toward the river and the country turns to desert, with pinyon and juniper giving way to cactus, lizards, and bighorn sheep picking along the ledges. The inner canyon is home to rattlesnakes and the small pink Grand Canyon rattlesnake found nowhere else, along with ringtails, an elusive relative of the raccoon that comes out after dark. Each descent is like traveling from Canada to Mexico in the span of a single mile.

Spring and fall are the sweet spots on the South Rim, with mild days, cool nights, and thinner crowds than the peak of summer. This is the best time for a hike below the rim, when the inner canyon is warm but not dangerous.

Summer brings the biggest crowds and real heat, especially down in the gorge where temperatures can climb well past what the rim ever feels, and afternoon thunderstorms roll in during the monsoon. Fall quiets down and the light turns golden, while winter dusts the South Rim in snow, red rock against white, one of the canyon's most beautiful and least crowded looks. The North Rim, higher and snowier, closes through the cold months entirely.

The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.