Desert View Drive Grand Canyon (69 km)

Grand Canyon Village to Desert View

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Why this ride

Out of Grand Canyon, one way: 69 km, roughly 1 h 11 in the saddle. On the way it passes Yaki Point, Grandview Point and Lipan Point. The highest point is about 2,050 m. It suits an unhurried touring pace.

Roadbook

1. Grand Canyon Village start

   Grand Canyon Village is the hub of the South Rim, a small, odd community of lodges, shops, a railway station and a clinic perched at about sixty-eight hundred feet on the edge of the biggest hole in the ground most people will ever see. The gorge is two hundred and seventy-seven miles long, up to eighteen miles wide, and over a mile deep, and it was carved by the Colorado River over millions of years, exposing layer upon layer of rock that records nearly two billion years of the planet's history.

   The village grew with the railway, which arrived from the main line in 1901 and ended the stagecoach era. The Fred Harvey Company, which ran hotels and restaurants along the Santa Fe line, built the El Tovar hotel in 1905 as a log-and-stone lodge on the rim, and hired the architect Mary Colter to design a series of buildings that borrowed from Native American styles, including the Hopi House, which is still a shop. Many of these historic structures are still in use and are worth a look before you head out.

   Desert View Drive starts here and runs east along the South Rim for about twenty-five miles, with a string of viewpoints just off the road. It is a gentle, flowing road in pine and juniper forest, with plenty of places to pull over, and it is far more peaceful than the busy village. The curves are easy and the surface is good, but speed limits are low, and elk, deer and tourists wander across the road. Early morning is best, with soft light on the rock and little traffic.

   At this altitude the air can be crisp, with frost in spring and autumn, and thunderstorms in July and August. The sun at the rim is strong, and the dry air will dehydrate you, so carry water. Visitors are warned never to go beyond the guard rails, because every year there are accidents. Fuel is available inside the park, though it is worth confirming in season, and at Tusayan, just outside the south entrance. Food ranges from cafeterias to the historic hotel dining rooms, and you may want to book ahead in summer.

2. Yaki Point scenic

   Yaki Point is a small, slightly out-of-the-way balcony on the South Rim, and it is blessed with a fact that suits quiet people: the spur road is closed to private cars for most of the year, so you reach it by park shuttle instead. Which means that, strictly speaking, this is the one stop on Desert View Drive where the motorcycle waits in a car park and you do the last stretch sitting down. The view is worth the small indignity. Beneath you the canyon falls away in terraces and buttresses, with the great stone shapes that early explorers named after Hindu and Egyptian gods standing out in the middle distance.

   The South Kaibab Trail starts here, dropping from the rim along a ridge that gives some of the finest views of any trail in the park. You do not need to go far to enjoy it. A hundred metres down, the horizon has already opened up, and the sound of the wind in the pinyons gives way to a profound hush. The geology is the star: the canyon is nearly a mile deep and 277 miles long, and the rock layers record close to two billion years of Earth history in their stripes.

   Riding Desert View Drive itself is a gentle business. It follows the rim east from Grand Canyon Village for about 25 miles, through ponderosa pine and juniper, with a series of pull-outs on the canyon side and easy, rolling curves between them. The speed limit is low, and the park enforces it, as elk and tourists wander across without notice. Early morning, when the light picks out every ridge and the temperature is mild, is the best time. Summer afternoons can be hot at the rim and thundery, and winter brings ice and snow with sudden closures.

   You pay a park entrance fee, and the rim is high, at roughly 2,100 metres, so nights can be cold even when the days are warm. Do not underestimate the altitude or the dry air, and drink more than you think necessary. Fuel is sold at Desert View, at the eastern end of the drive, though a petrol station at the other end of a long ride deserves some respect, and Grand Canyon Village and Tusayan outside the south gate have more. Eat in the village before you set off. Sunset here is a quiet, slow affair, and worth timing.

3. Grandview Point scenic

   Grandview Point earned its name the old-fashioned way, by being very obviously grand. At more than 2,200 metres on the South Rim, it was one of the first places where tourists were brought to look into the canyon, and in the late 1890s a prospector named Pete Berry built a hotel nearby, the Grandview, to take advantage of the traffic. The stagecoach road from Flagstaff ended here before the railway reached the Village in 1901 and pulled the business west. The old hotel is gone, but the view is the same, and the pull-out looks across an uninterrupted sweep of the canyon with the Colorado River glimmering far below.

   What makes it special is the geology laid out like a diagram. The Grandview Trail drops steeply from the rim to Horseshoe Mesa, where Berry worked copper claims, and old mining relics still scatter the slopes. You do not have to be a hiker to enjoy the view, but you can take a few steps on the trail to feel the edge of the world fall away. Pinyon pine and juniper crouch along the rim, and ravens ride the updraughts so close that you can hear their wings.

   The ride along Desert View Drive here is a series of calm, rolling curves with moderate gradients and long lines of sight through the forest. The road surface is mostly good, but the verges are soft, and elk and mule deer are a constant hazard. At 35 mph or less, the point of the ride is not speed but rhythm. Pull in at each viewpoint, take a minute to look, and then continue. Crowds are lighter than around the Village, particularly in the morning and in late afternoon. Winter brings snow, and the road can close for a few hours or days during storms.

   There are no services at Grandview Point apart from toilets. Desert View, about 20 kilometres to the east, sells fuel, snacks and souvenirs, and Grand Canyon Village, about 16 kilometres west, has shops, restaurants and petrol, though it is busier. Tusayan, outside the south entrance, has more still. Bring water and sunscreen, and a windproof jacket in any season. The rim can be cold, and the wind comes up out of the canyon with a sharp edge.

4. Lipan Point scenic

   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.

5. Desert View finish

   Desert View is where the canyon seems to change its character. At the eastern end of the South Rim road, the walls are lower, the river is visible as a green-brown ribbon far below, and the view opens to the north and east across the Painted Desert, a country of banded red and lilac mesas that fades away toward the horizon. The rim here is around seventy-five hundred feet, and the air is thin, dry and bright.

   The landmark is the Watchtower, a seventy-foot stone tower finished in 1932 and designed by Mary Colter, who modelled it on the ancestral Puebloan towers of the Southwest. Inside, the walls are painted with murals by Hopi artist Fred Kabotie, and a spiral stair climbs to a window with a splendid view. It is a remarkable building to find on the edge of a precipice, and it deserves a few minutes, even if you have already had your fill of viewpoints. Next to it, a trading post sells Native American crafts and snacks.

   The road that brings you here, Desert View Drive, runs for around twenty-five miles from the village, through pine forest, past one viewpoint after another, with the canyon opening up and closing again through the trees. It is a leisurely ride, easy on the bike and the nerves, but heavy with tourist traffic in summer, when cars slow down to look. Late afternoon, with low light and the rock turning orange and rose, is one of the best times to be at this end of the park. Beyond the east gate, the road drops to the Navajo Nation and the high desert.

   The Navajo craft stalls just outside the gate are good for jewellery and pottery. Temperatures at the rim are mild for the desert, though still hot in July, and winter nights are cold, with snow possible. The sunsets are famously beautiful, with colour changing every few minutes, and the stars after dark are extraordinary.

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