The sunrise was at 6:58, so at 6:00 we were leaving the hotel by car. If you are planning to do this, I recommend you to leave 1 hour before the sunrise, although our hotel was only at 15min driving from the Grand Canyon Visitor Center, because it wasn’t easy to find the right parking and the right path to Mather Point.
Also, there was a lot of people doing the same, so better go early to get a nice spot.
We went in December and it was super cold, be prepare for it.
After enjoying the beautiful sunrise at Mather Point, we went back to our hotel (Holiday Inn) to have breakfast and get a shower. Then we bought some stuff to do a picnic later in the canyon.
After getting back to the park we took the shuttle bus (Kaibab / rim route, the orange line) in the visitor center at 10:45.
Stop 1: Yaki Point
Stop 2: Pipe Creek Vista and from there we walked to the visitor center, took our car and went to Stop 3: Yavapai Geology Museum. Totally recommended, it explains very well how the canyon was formed. It also has a little amphitheater where we did our picnic.
Then we parked the car in the Kolb Studio where we had a coffee and took the shuttle bus to do the red route. We got out of the bus in Powel Point, which is one of the best stop we did. The view is beautiful. From there we walked to Hopi Point and took the shuttle to Mojave Point.
At this point it was 15:30 and we decided to go back to get the car and go to the hotel. We were really tired.
Grand Canyon General Info
You can visit either the West, North and /or South Rim. We decided to visit the South Rim because we read is the best option. Also, my husband went before to the West Rim in another trip, and after this trip, he agrees that the South is better.
We stayed 2 nights in Tusayan town at the Holiday Inn Express. This town is 15min driving from the Grand Canyon.
We dedicated a day to visit the Grand Canyon, from 6:00am to 15:30-16:00 and were satisfied. Of course, we didn’t go into the canyon since you need more days and reservation to do this or take a helicopter (I want to do it next time, but this time was out of our budget).
We did the orange and red routes of the shuttle bus and walked between some of the stops.
Don’t worry if you don’t understand the routes or what to do in the South Rim. It is very easy to find your way around once you are there, plus they give you a map at the entry.
We would have love to do part of the Bright Angel trail, but it was our 11th day traveling, and we were tired. Maybe some other time we’ll do it.
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Bella Ispirazione 