Lipan Point has the widest view on the South Rim, or at least the one that feels widest. It sits well east of the crowds, where the canyon bends and the Colorado River comes in sight in long stretches, and on a clear day you can follow the river as it slides between its walls, then disappears and returns in a different colour. Below you a broad green terrace sits beside the water, which is the Unkar Delta, where Ancestral Puebloan farmers once grew corn and squash on the flat ground by the river. Their stone traces still lie there, hard to see from the rim but real.
The rock layers are laid out here in a particularly clear way, and the point is a favourite with geologists and photographers. In the middle of the view, near the river, you can pick out the Great Unconformity, a boundary where much younger layers sit directly on far older tilted rocks, with an enormous gap in the geological record between them. You do not need to understand it to be moved by it. The rapids at Unkar can be heard, faintly, on still evenings. Sunset and sunrise are the hours when the colours flare, deep reds and oranges and long blue shadows.
The route is a quiet one. Desert View Drive, which brings you here, is a gentle, forested road with easy curves, slow speeds and a good surface, and from Lipan you are only a few miles from the end of the drive. Watch for elk at dawn and dusk, for the odd tour bus, and for gravel at the entrances to the pull-outs. The altitude is about 2,200 metres, so mornings are crisp. Spring and autumn are the most comfortable seasons for riding, and winter brings snow and closures at short notice.
Fuel and food are available at Desert View, a few kilometres on, where the Watchtower, designed by architect Mary Colter and finished in 1932, rises above the rim in stone, with murals inside and a gift shop and a small store. If you are going on east, Cameron on US 89 has fuel and a historic trading post. The park charges an entry fee, and the facilities at Lipan are limited to a few parking bays and a small paved viewing area. Stay behind the walls, which are low in places, and remember that the drop is long.