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In the News

Philadelphia Inquirer, The (PA)
July 22, 2001
Section: FEATURES TRAVEL
Edition: ADVANCE
Page: L01

On day-trip return to Grand Canyon, there's no denying the facts of nature
Day-tripping: Las Vegas to the Grand Canyon

A day trip back to the Grand Canyon

Howard Shapiro, Travel Editor

This little town is where you most likely land when you fly for the day to the Grand Canyon from Las Vegas. The very idea of being in the Grand Canyon and Las Vegas on the same day is like starting your morning with verses of the Bible and then diving by lunchtime into Mad magazine; Americans have a generous capacity for extremes.

And so you leave Las Vegas behind you - the magic made by humans who have created the most bizarre thoroughfare in the country - and you board a light plane for the magic made by nature, which has created the most massive strip of bizarre topography in the county. The Grand Canyon last year had almost five million visitors, and figures show that about a tenth of them came in from Las Vegas.

They generally see the canyon in the highly American fashion of tourism: flying over it, glimpsing many of its most impressive sites,walking from a visitor center for a few minutes along the South Rim, looking through lenses that magnify its beauty (if that is even possible), perhaps starting here in Tusayan by taking in an Imax movie that celebrates the canyon.

I'm not knocking this. I want to believe that our penchant for hit-and-run visitation comes more from our desire to experience everything we can - just a taste here and a sip there, thank you - than from short attention spans. The makers of Sesame street realize this urge (and some say, promote it), but so do the people who run the Louvre and hand out maps that highlight only the biggies, so that you can find your way directly to Mona Lisa's wall without being delayed by, well, art. The National Park Service, which maintains the Grand Canyon does what it can to accommodate the day trips from Vegas, where almost 36 million people visited last year, tantalizingly close to the canyon's spectacle.

And so, you can come here many ways. You can take a little flyover o the canyon and back, about a three-hour trip, without ever getting out of the plane. Or a five-hour bust trip over the 280 miles between Vegas and the canyon, or a drive by car, or helicopter flights that will land you directly on a mesa inside the canyon, where a table will be set for lunch. You can get yourself to an Arizona town called Williams and then take the 65-mile trip to the canyon on the historic Grand Canyon Railway Line, a marvelous old chug-chug that will be 100 years old on Sept. 17.

My family and I chose a popular flight-and-ground combination that we booked with the Grand Canyon Tour Co., one of many operations traveling daily between slot machines and hot ravines. It was a typical tour: eight hours from hotel and back, with lunch and several stops at the South Rim (the more popular of the two canyon rims), in a small plane with lots of glass for good gorge viewing.Our 19-seater was operated by Scenic Airlines, with headsets at each seat and a tape with fine narrations about the sights, some New Age music, and other repetitive, irritating pieces that may have been composed for a hoe-down of cousins who had all married one another over the generations.

While Vegas tends to run on time even though there are no clocks, Mother Nature, the real operator of the Grand Canyon, does not. So the first morning the bus picked us up at Mandalay Bay for the half-hour trip to North Las Vegas Airport, we sat at the gate waiting for a storm over the canyon to clear. It did, but lightning continued, and after we waited in the airport for about two hours, the pilots - bless them! - decided not to fly.

We tried all over again the next morning. In the heavens, the storm had turned to heavy winds. Many of us were uncertain about what we would see spilling first - the magnificent waters of Hoover Dam below us or breakfast. After an hour airborne, we landed at Grand Canyon Airport in Tusayan, which is just south of Grand Canyon Village, a major entryway to the South Rim. We were bused to lunch at a place called the Grand Hotel, which probably does a landmark business in motion-sickness pills for the trip back.

Here's a little tip from the bus driver: As soon as you're at the buffet lunch - salads, hot meats and little cakes, rather like a typical college dorm dinner - to ease the quease, squeeze lemon into a glass of water, then sip. It worked.

The afternoon followed with a stop at Grand Canyon headquarters, where the visitor center provides maps, plus lookouts onto classic views of the canyon, and a ride to Bright Angel Lodge, where we walked around the lovely inn, took advantage of the many fine lookouts, and were generally awed. The sky had been turbulent, but on earth, it was a sterling day at summer's end, and the canyon's many hues were remarkable. The canyon may be 277 miles long, but when you see nothing before you but the abyss, and look down into it, You Are There. Even if it's only for a few hours.

My epiphany came at the walk outside Bright Angel Lodge. I stood with my family at the edge of the rim where a trail named Bright Angel begins its way down to the Colorado River, on the canyon floor. I walked perhaps 20 steps down the trail and felt its steep descent. I stopped and looked over the canyonscape, over the mesas, down past the tree line, as far as I could see. I tried so hard to perceive the way I felt almost 30 years ago, when, fit and fearless, I began a four-day descent by foot to the river, on the same piece of trail where I now stood.

In my mind, I could see the harrowing narrowness of Bright Angel as it rounded the cliffs, and the wide-open walk on a gentle mesa on a rainy yet sunny afternoon. I could see the pounding waterfall that beckoned me, on the fourth day, to impulsively strip and shower. I saw narrow and towering walls with little strata of colors, each representing hundreds of thousand of years.

I looked down at my shoes and was back in the present, only steps from the top and far older. Unable to take that arduous walk ever again. But happily alive and, once more, in the canyon's impossible thrall.

Howard Shapiro's email address is hshapiro@phillynews.com.

You can book a day trip by bus, plane or helicopter to the Grand Canyon in Arizona with any one of many tour companies. They have myriad packages that include half-day flyovers or overnight stays at a canyon lodge. Some packages include visits to Hoover Dam, not far outside Las Vegas.

Grand Canyon Tour Co.

The tour we took is the most popular type - a mixture of air and ground touring that takes an entire day. Grand Canyon Tour Co., the operator we chose, has many different tours. Ours included bus pickup and return to our Las Vegas hotel, a flight to and from the canyon, lunch, and sightseeing at two parts of the South Rim.

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