A Grand Canyon Tour: The Total Perspective Vortex

[Grand Canyon Tours]

'Trin Tragula was a dreamer, a thinker, a speculative philosopher or, as his wife would have it, an idiot, and she would nag him incessantly about the utterly inordinate amount of time he spent staring out into space, or mulling over the mechanics of safety pins, or doing spectographic analyses of pieces of fairy cake.

"Have some sense of proportion!" she would say, sometimes as often as thirty-eight times in a single day.

And so he built the total perspective vortex--just to show her, and into one end he plugged the whole of reality as extrapolated from a piece of fairy cake, and into the other end he plugged his wife: so that when he turned it on she saw in one instant the whole infinity of creation and herself in relation to it.

To Trin Tragula's horror, the shock completely annihilated her brain; but to his satisfaction he realized that he had proved conclusively that if life is going to exist in a universe of this size, then the one thing it cannot afford is a sense of proportion.' (Douglas Adams, the Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy)

The grand canyon, may not be the whole infinity of creation, or a fairy cake but it certainly puts size into perspective, and as for a sense of proportion wellŠŠ..

The grand canyon is undoubtedly one of the true natural wonders of the world. the rock formations are known the world over, as the red strata is one of the most photographed areas in the world. This stratum shows millions years of evolution and erosion, the inaccessibility of some of the pictographs (cave drawings) are proof of that. But however many pictures you see, however many holiday programmes you watch, you could even know every statistic there is to know on what is essentially an enormous hole in the ground, but the reaction when you first see it, is indescribable it is very difficult not to gasp in amazement and awesome may be a horrid word, but for the canyon, it works.

When we visited we took a rather long way round, we drove around the North rim up to the far end of the Canyon, where we stayed in Page on the shore of Lake Powell. The two extremes of the Canyon are marked by two dams, the Glen Canyon dam in the East which forms Lake Powell and Hoover Dam (as repaired by Christopher Reeve in Superman!) in the West forming Lake Mead. Now, the Canyon itself is 150 miles long, so I really don't understand why the majority of visitors chose to visit only a 3 mile area of it, which is on the South Rim about half way down where you will find the Grand Canyon Village.

There are several ways of seeing the Canyon; one of the most popular is by Helicopter or Plane. We didn't do this but I understand from many reports, this can be a little unnerving. I think you're fine if love flying, but if you suffer from motion sickness it can get very turbulent, I think they plan on cleaning out the machines fairly regularly. The prices for this seem to range from $150 - $250 depending on the length of trip.

Then there is by raft, this is one of the ways I would really love to see the Grand Canyon. The main issue is getting out again, there are only a couple of stops along the way where you can actually get access to the river so they offer trips of 3 days minimum or 7 days takes you down to the end of the line at lake Mead. The other issue with this area of the canyon is the white water so if you don't want to do rapids, don't do it. I was pregnant at the time of our visit so this option was out, but even if I hadn't been you have to book places on the raft trips upwards of 18 months beforehand. My cousin did an independent canoe trip through and it took him 2 years to get the permit to allow him to do it, as the number of visitors allowed within the rim is strictly regulated.

However there is another option, as I mentioned earlier we stayed in Page and you can take a one day float (no rapids) down the Glen Canyon which is not as vast, but just as beautiful and costs (from memory) $50. These can be booked in Page itself and you do not need to pre-book. We did this and it was a wonderful day, the peace of floating down the river, seeing the wild life and rock formations and after just a short walk some 4000 year old pictographs. They provided lunch. The whole day was truly amazing, and fine for pregnant ladies. You get out at Lees Ferry, which is at the entrance to the Grand Canyon and is where the other rafting trips start.

Then there are the options that you can take from the Canyon village, you can walk down into the rim, which if you plan on staying overnight you will need an overnight permit but if you do this you could stay at Phantom Range, if you don't want to walk down you can take a mule. It is however a two day trip to go down to the valley floor, although the distance isn't huge, it's a really steep climb and you need to make sure you are properly prepared, copious amounts of water are essential as dehydration is the biggest problem. Mainly because this is desert country so it is hot. Having visited in the middle of summer some of the pictures of the Canyon covered in snow are very beautiful but does looks very bizarre.

At this point I would recommend anyone who is interested in hiking, mules or planes to also have a read of the Grand Canyon review by Trampus, who describes her hair raising activities in excellent style.

Daily life at the Canyon village is fairly predictable. Everybody wakes up fairly early, before sun rise to see the sun come up on the Canyon, the colours change substantially and dramatically depending on the time of day, and photographers are out in force throughout the day, we are fairly good photographers and it has to be said all the photos we took from the Canyon rim were well below our usual standard, and I think this is a fairly common experience so it is worth buying some postcards or something similar while you are there. The most popular time for photographs is of course Sunset, when the colours are at their most vibrant, and it is very orange. Most visitors to the Canyon do not venture down inside the rim and simply gaze in wonder from the edge at the village, so at sunset in particular guard your spot early as from the various lookout points there is a huge number of people lined up with their cameras ready for the nightly show.

Accommodation in the village is actually fairly reasonable for a National Park, there are the usual sorts of hotel available and naturally you pay a supplement for a canyon view, there are 4 campsites within the park and any lodging is booked up way in advance, so you do have to get in early. The website address is www.grand.canyon.national-park.com and this has all the details you will need, although a straight forward search gives loads of options so it is worth having a good surf before you book.

The Canyon village is as I mentioned earlier only a very small part of the Canyon itself and I would strongly urge any visitor not to make it their sole focus. For me the most enjoyable part was not the Village, which I would not have missed for anything but the stay in Page beforehand. Page is on the shore of Lake Powell and at the entrance to the Glen Canyon, although is not as vast as the Grand Canyon it is very beautiful. The rock formation within the Glen Canyon is much softer than in the Grand Canyon, a bit like the difference between the Dolomites and the Alps for any of you who may have crossed them in Europe. There is much more to do in Page and it is cheaper, not being within the National Park. The view from the hotel room genuinely does not look real, it is like a picture of utter tranquillity and the changes in colour throughout the day is the only thing that reminds you it is not a painting.

The other noticeable difference in Page from the canyon village is the colour of the river, there is a very definite difference between the blue of the water and the red of the rock. However, the river running through the Canyon is the Colorado which literally translates as 'Colour Red' and not without good reason, we were very lucky as we arrived on a blue day and then we had torrential downpour of rain, which disturbed all the sediment within the river, so the following day it was red or just dirty whichever way you want to think of it. This only took effect from the entrance to the Grand Canyon, and apparently can take several weeks to clear. From the Canyon village the river is barely visible, and I love water so the main reason for preferring Page to the village was the fact that the river was so accessible. The Grand Canyon is just that, very Grand, very majestic but the Glen Canyon is smaller, softer and I feel more beautiful.

Thank you for taking the time to read this review and I look forward to your comments.

Paradise Found Tours maintains a website for The Grand Canyon at http://www.paradisefoundtours.com. The site provides information for Grand Canyon tours, special news, fees and other pertinent information.

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