Grand Canyon South Rim
14 Apache St, Grand Canyon Village, AZ
Grand Canyon Village, AZ
The rim the whole world pictures when it hears the words Grand Canyon, open every day of the year and lined with viewpoints that never quite stop stunning.
The South Rim is the Grand Canyon most people mean when they say they are going to the canyon. It is open every day of the year, easy to reach, and lined with a string of overlooks that deliver the classic view again and again, each a little different. From the rim you look out over a chasm a mile deep and, on a clear day, all the way across to the forested North Rim many miles away.
Grand Canyon Village anchors it all, a historic community of stone-and-timber buildings set right at the edge, several of them designed by the architect Mary Colter to look as if they grew out of the canyon itself. A paved Rim Trail runs for miles along the edge, so you can walk from viewpoint to viewpoint with the whole canyon falling away beside you, and a free shuttle carries you out to the quieter overlooks to the west.
What Guests Love
- The long, walkable Rim Trail linking one grand overlook to the next
- Sunrise and sunset from Mather Point, Yavapai Point, or Hopi Point
- The cluster of historic buildings in the village, from El Tovar to Mary Colter's stone landmarks
- Riding the free shuttle out to the western viewpoints along Hermit Road
Worth Knowing
- The village and viewpoints get very busy in summer, so ride the shuttle and come early or late for the best light and fewest people
- This is high desert at about 7,000 feet, so it is cooler than Phoenix and can be cold or snowy in winter
- Stay behind railings and off soft rim edges, which are the real danger here
- Carry water and sun protection even for short rim walks, since the air is dry and the sun strong
Details
Grand Canyon Village, AZ
Learn about Grand Canyon South Rim
A rim shaped by many hands
The canyon has been home to Native peoples for thousands of years, and eleven tribes hold ties to it, among them the Havasupai, Hualapai, Hopi, Navajo (Diné), Zuni, and Southern Paiute. Ancestral Puebloan peoples farmed and built along the rims long ago, and Tusayan Ruin, a small pueblo site near the east end of the South Rim, preserves the outline of one of their villages.
The South Rim's built landmarks tell the newer chapter. In the early twentieth century the railroad reached the rim, El Tovar Hotel opened above the canyon, and the architect Mary Colter designed Hopi House, Hermit's Rest, Lookout Studio, and the Desert View Watchtower, drawing on Native and regional building traditions. Those stone buildings, weathered into the rim, are now historic landmarks in their own right and much of what gives Grand Canyon Village its character.
Reading the layered walls
From the South Rim you look straight into roughly two billion years of Earth's history, stacked in bands. The pale limestone at the top was laid down under an ancient sea, and the layers step down through sandstones and shales to the dark, ancient rock at the bottom near the river. The Colorado River cut all of it over the last several million years as the plateau slowly rose and the running water ground steadily downward.
Because the South Rim sits lower and drier than the North Rim, and slopes gently away from the gorge, it stays warmer and gets far less snow, which is why it can stay open all year. The overlooks here reach out over the widest, most open stretch of the canyon, so the layered walls spread before you in their full range of color, shifting from rose to gold to deep violet as the sun crosses the sky.
Wildlife along the edge
The South Rim is ponderosa pine and pinyon-juniper country, and its most visible residents are the elk and mule deer that wander right through the village, along with bold ravens and the tassel-eared Abert's squirrel. Watch the open air along the rim for California condors, huge black birds with numbered wing tags, brought back from the brink of extinction and now nesting in the canyon.
Below the rim the country turns quickly to desert, home to bighorn sheep on the ledges, lizards, and rattlesnakes, including the pinkish Grand Canyon rattlesnake found only here. Coyotes trot the rim at dawn and dusk, and after dark ringtails, shy relatives of the raccoon, come out around the historic buildings. Even a short walk down a trail moves you into a warmer, wilder world.
Season by season
Spring and fall are the finest times on the South Rim, with mild days, cool nights, and thinner crowds than midsummer. These shoulder seasons are also the best window for a hike below the rim, when the inner canyon is warm without turning dangerous.
Summer is the peak season, busy and warm on the rim and genuinely hot down in the gorge, with monsoon thunderstorms building on July and August afternoons. Winter is the South Rim's quiet secret, when snow settles on the red rock and the crowds vanish, leaving one of the most beautiful and peaceful versions of the canyon there is, all of it still open and reachable.
Closest Boutels
The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.
Things to Do Near Grand Canyon Village
El Tovar Hotel
In the village, at the rim
The grand old hotel that has stood at the edge of the canyon since 1905, all dark timber and stone, still welcoming guests above the gorge.
Desert View Watchtower
About 25 miles east along the rim
Mary Colter's stone tower at the quiet east end of the drive, its interior painted with Hopi murals and looking out toward the Painted Desert.
Williams
About 60 miles south
A Route 66 town and home of the Grand Canyon Railway, which runs a vintage train straight to the South Rim.
Flagstaff
About 80 miles south
A mountain college town beneath the San Francisco Peaks, with Lowell Observatory, dark skies, and cool pine forests.