Grand Canyon National Park is an large park that is home to the world-famous natural wonder of ​​the Grand Canyon. The park is located around 447 kilometers of the Colorado River, which over millions of years has shaped the landscape into the colossal canyon that today is in the northeastern part of the state of Arizona.

The dimensions of the Grand Canyon are huge, and the gorge is between 6 and 29 kilometers wide. The depth varies with the greatest depth reaching up to 1,600 meters, and the meandering course of the Colorado River continues to dig deeper, although it happens at a geological pace. All the way along the river, the canyon is bursting with an artist’s sense of shapes and colors, and everywhere there is a play in the sun’s rays against the mainly red-hued rock formations, and that is an unforgettable sight.

The Grand Canyon was out of the so-called Colorado Plateau by the Colorado River over millions of years. Historically, the plateau was created by volcanoes depositing enormous amounts of material, and through colossal pressure and heat, the lower layers became metamorphic rocks, and sedimentary rock layers were formed on top of them. Back then, the area was covered by sea, and the upper layers were limestone, which was created from shells etc. in the sea.

A later land uplift between 30 and 70 million years ago formed the high plateau, which still forms the Colorado Plateau several kilometers high. The uplift is believed to have been created by a geologically rapid plate tectonic collision that caused the rock layers to rise horizontally, which can be seen in the clearly marked rock layers of Grand Canyon today, where the oldest layers are naturally at the bottom, while the newest limestone layer is at the top.

After the formation of the Colorado Plateau, another million years passed before the Colorado River began its work of cutting through the rocks to what we see today as the Grand Canyon. Before the present river there were two separate rivers to the east and west of the present gorge, and it is not known for certain how they joined. However, it is known that the Grand Canyon was formed from 5-7 million years ago.

Water volumes from not least the Rocky Mountains washed through the area and over the plateau. With sometimes massive volumes of water, large pieces of rock were carried with the water, and both the volumes of water and the rocks created cracks in the plateau, in which the water could flow naturally towards the sea. The fissures eventually became the Grand Canyon, where up to 90% of the plateau’s rain flows through. The development continues today, but in a few million years the gap will have become quite a bit wider without having become much deeper. This is due to the hard metamorphic rocks and the fact that the height above sea level is decreasing.

The Colorado River runs mainly from east to west in Grand Canyon National Park, and you can visit the park and the panoramic views of the canyon and river from both north and south. However, the Grand Canyon is best seen from the south side, and here are roads that lead to several viewpoints such as Desert View, which is one of the many good places to see the area’s impressive dimensions. In addition to the places mentioned, there are countless opportunities for hiking in the national park and the adjacent reserves. There are trails along the edge of the gorge, down to the Colorado River and many others of varying length, terrain and difficulty, and river cruises are also arranged through the vast area.

South Rim and Grand Canyon Village

From the south side, you can drive into the national park’s southeast area to the South Rim and Grand Canyon Village. You can drive through two entrances, East Entrance from the east and South Entrance from the south. The two entrances are connected by Desert View Drive, which also passes Grand Canyon Village and the Grand Canyon Visitor Center. Both of these places are natural stops on the tour, because you can obtain good information about the national park and enjoy the atmosphere and views from the village.

Grand Canyon Village is a small town with approximately 2,000 inhabitants, who not least live here as part of the large tourism to the national park. In the village there are places to eat and accommodation for the many visitors, and you can also see some interesting buildings such as the Grand Canyon Railroad Depot. The station was built by the Santa Fe Railroad in 1910 as the northern terminus of the railroad from Williams, Arizona. You can still take the train to and from Williams, and it’s done with beautiful old rail cars. At the Grand Canyon Railroad Depot, you can see diesel locomotive 6776 Alco FPA-4 from 1958 as well as the trains in service.

Just north of the station in Grand Canyon Village is the El Tovar Hotel, the city’s large and old hotel, which was built in 1903 in a fantastic location almost on the edge of the Grand Canyon. At the hotel you can enjoy the view of the canyon and start an unforgettable hike at the Rim Trail along the Grand Canyon. To the west of the El Tovar Hotel you can see other hotels and cabins with similarly unparalleled locations, and at Bright Angel Lodge you can see the log cabin Buckey O’Neill’s Cabin, which is the oldest preserved building on the South Rim. The cabin was built in 1895 by William Owen “Buckey” O’Neill in the pioneer-era Grand Canyon.

A little east of Grand Canyon Village is the Grand Canyon Visitor Center, where you can get a lot of information and knowledge about the national park, its nature, history and facilities. For example, you can start the visit by watching the film “Grand Canyon: A journey of wonder”, which provides a good introduction to the park. After a tour of the visitor center, you can walk behind the center building to the Rim Trail and the Mather Point viewpoint, from where you can enjoy a fantastic view of the canyon.

The bus station for some of the park’s shuttle buses is also at the Visitor Center. From here you can, for example, take the Kaibab Rim (Orange) Route, which connects the visitor center with Yaki Point and Pipe Creek Overlook to the east and with Mather Point and the Yavapai Geology Museum to the west. Note that west of Grand Canyon Village you can take the shuttle bus Hermits Rest (Red) Route west to the viewpoint Hermits Rest. It is 11 kilometers to the turning point Hermits Rest, and there are many stops along the way with nice lookout points. You can get off and walk between the individual stops or take the next bus on, and there is a 12.6 kilometer hiking route along the gorge on the same stretch.

With the shuttle bus, it is easy to get to many of the good viewpoints along the Grand Canyon. You can also easily drive to some of them in your own car. If you follow Desert View Drive from the South Entrance towards the East Entrance, there are a number of places where you can stop and enjoy the view of the canyon. These are, for example, Yaki Point, which is at an altitude of 2,213 meters, Grandview Point at 2,256 meters, Moran Point at 2,182 meters, Lipan Point at 2,243 meters, Navajo Point at 2,275 meters and Desert View at 2,267 meters.

North Rim

You can also visit the Grand Canyon from the north side, which is also called the North Rim. This section is also part of Grand Canyon National Park, and the viewpoints and hiking trails in this section of the park are accessed by Road 67 from the north. However, note that Road 67 is closed in the winter, unlike Desert View Drive along the South Rim, which is open year-round.

At the end of Road 67 is the North Rim Visitor Center, which, as the visitor center to the south, provides a good introduction to Grand Canyon National Park and to the facilities, viewpoints and hiking trails that are in the park.

At the Visitor Center, there are also hotels and cabins with the Grand Canyon Lodge as the largest place with a unique location in front of the canyon itself. Just south of the lodge you are rewarded with a beautiful view, and from here you can walk along the Bright Angel Point Trail to Bright Angel Point, which is a few hundred meters away at an altitude of 2,487 meters.

A few kilometers north of the Grand Canyon Visitor Center, you can drive along Cape Royal Road to several viewpoints over the canyon, and on the trip you can of course also enjoy the wooded landscape. In the north is Point Imperial at an altitude of 2,683 meters, and if you drive south along Cape Royal Road instead, you pass Vista Encantada at 2,585 meters, Roosevelt Point at 2,582 meters and Walhalla Overlook at 2,438 meters before reaching Cape Royal at 2,397 meters.

At Cape Royal you can also see the famous rock formation Angel’s Window. The trip from the North Rim Visitor Center to Cape Royal is 37 kilometers. The straight-line distance to the South Rim is 15 kilometers from the North Rim Visitor Center, while you have to drive over 330 kilometers on the roads to get there.

Grand Canyon West

A third option to get to the gorge and the view of the Grand Canyon is in the Grand Canyon West area, located in the Hualapai Indian Reservation. The place is relatively close to Las Vegas, and it is not least for that reason quite well visited, even though it is not in the Grand Canyon National Park itself.

Grand Canyon West is particularly known for the Grand Canyon Skywalk, a see-through, horseshoe-shaped walkway that extends over the rim of the canyon. The drop below the Grand Canyon Skywalk is up to 240 meters, while the Colorado River is 1,100 meters below the attraction. It is a special experience to hang over the edge of the cliff, and from both the footbridge and the surrounding landscape there is an excellent view of the huge gorge created by the Colorado River.