South Rim | Stephen Krieg Photography Blog

From the popular vista named Desert View on the East Rim of the South Rim (that’s not confusing, or anything) of Grand Canyon National Park, you can look upriver, upcanyon. The sheer cliffs in the foreground are the Palisades of the Desert.

What desert? The Painted Desert in the distance, most of which is on Navajo Nation land. It’s pretty flat out there, high and dry and austerely beautiful.

But anyway: Back to the Palisades. The various layers are nicely visible in this light. And the layers within the major layers. Being sedimentary rock, you don’t have to have an interest in geology to think about how all those layers were slowly deposited millions of years ago, then uplifted, and eroded by forces still in play today.

Photo location: Desert View, Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona.

Grandview Point is one of the most popular viewpoints on the South Rim of Grand Canyon National Park. Thus it gets pretty crowded.

However, it’s also the trailhead for the Grandview Trail down into the Canyon. Walking a short ways down this trail quickly takes you away from the crowds milling about at the vista.

The Grandview Trail is not one of the park’s main “corridor trails”, so it’s not regularly maintained or patrolled. Because of that, don’t go too far down unless you’re adequately prepared. The trail was originally built by miners to haul copper ore out of the Canyon from Grandview Mesa far below. Even a short ways down this trail and you will see why it was meant for trusty, surefooted pack mules!

This photo was made early in the morning. I had the good fortune of there being enough morning fog in the air to be burning off by the rising sun, giving a somewhat ethereal look to the scene.

It’s several shots merged into one high resolution panoramic image, so click on it for a much larger version, to give yourself an even better sense of being there.

Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona.