Early in the month, a neighbor told us if we wanted to see the Grand Canyon we should make it a priority before the whole thing was covered in snow. We’re at about 4000 ft in Kanab, and we quickly learned that the weather around here is elevation-based. It could easily be snowing just north of us, because it’s just a bit higher than our campsite. The Grand Canyon North Rim is about about 8000 ft, so even though it’s south of us, the weather is vastly different.

We kept waiting for Kanab to warm back up to the seasonal average temperatures, but it didn’t happen. Finally we had to accept our fate: if we want to see things, we’re going to have to endure some cold weather. And bundle up.

And that’s how we found ourselves heading out to the north rim on a Monday morning, climbing higher and higher. Then it happened: the world turned white.

To be honest, we really didn’t expect this. It was a little slower going on the slippery roads, turning a 1.5 hour drive into at least 2 hours (and that’s just to the entrance of the park). When we arrived, we were among just a handful of other tourists foolish enough to visit this late in the season. Only 10% of GC visitors see the north rim.

Unfortunately, the entire park was already closed for the season. I’d been all over the park’s website, and they’re usually very good about noting current conditions for visitors, yet I never saw that mentioned. It’s possible this was the first day of park closure following a snowfall. I never found out.

The only parking lot that was open was right by the Visitor’s Center (which was also closed). This left us with pretty much one scenic overlook, Bright Angel Point. At first I was extremely disappointed, but we traipsed all over the available trails and took in the views.

Oddly enough, my family’s slides all came from this overlook, so that was a bonus. I’m not sure why they took this slide, but I was able to match it almost perfectly.

And it was pretty cool to see that this view was nearly identical as well. Slides from 1970 and current views from 2022.

The main event is Bright Angel Canyon itself, of course. At least, it was for us, since that’s all we could see while we were here!

Without any further exploring available, we weren’t quite sure what we should do next. Eat some sandwiches and let the kid play in the parking lot, I guess? Atlas was mesmerized by the giant crows, which were almost as big as he is!

I, on the other hand, found some entertainment by trying to photograph the beautiful painted buntings that were mostly trying to stay hidden up in the trees.

After that there was nothing to do but head home. Not a total fail of a day, but certainly not what we pictured. As we descended from 8000 ft back to 4000 ft, we had some beautiful views of southern Utah. This area is called Grand Staircase Escalante, and from this view you can see the steps of the “grand staircase” as it rises upward toward Bryce Canyon National Park. The very furthest peaks (pictured below) are the southern edge of Bryce, which is also at about 8000 ft of elevation.

So, not the day we planned, but still a good day!