About Grand Canyon : The Grand Canyon is a steep-sided canyon carved by the Colorado River in the state of Arizona in the United States of America. The Grand Canyon is 277 miles long, up to 18 miles wide and attains a depth of over a mile. Nearly two billion years of Earth's geological history have been exposed as the Colorado River and its tributaries cut their channels through layer after layer of rock while the Colorado Plateau was uplifted. While some aspects of the history of incision of the canyon are debated by geologists, several recent studies support the hypothesis that the Colorado River established its course through the area about 5 to 6 million years ago. Since that time, the Colorado River has driven the down-cutting of the tributaries and retreat of the cliffs, simultaneously deepening and widening the canyon.
For thousands of years, the area has been continuously inhabited by Native Americans, who built settlements within the canyon and its many caves. The Pueblo people considered the Grand Canyon a holy site and made pilgrimages to it

Duration of the Trip : For us, it was a one day trip from Phoenix, Arizona. Though it was enough to explore that area as a tourist, but 2-3 days trip is advisable in case one wants to witness the sunrise, sunset or perform trekking in Grand Canyon.

Transportation : We booked our 1 day Grand Canyon and Sedona Tour from Great Venture Tours. We booked the tour from Groupon.com. It cost us $129 per head which was inclusive of transportation cost (i.e., AC minivan), water bottle, and all the entry fees. We started from Phoenix at 6:00 am and reached back by 9:00 pm.

Details of the Trip: As instructed by the travel agency, we gathered near the ‘Ramada Hotel near 2nd Avenue 6:00 am. The van arrived by 6:15 am. There were 3-4 more pick ups on the ways before we had our first stop at Athena. Around 8:30 we had a 20 minutes stop at Camp Verde for breakfast. This place had many food joints like McDonalds', Subway, Tacobell, Starbucks etc.
Camp Verde is also famous for having a 32 foot tall Kokopelli which is the largest Kokopelli in the world. Those who doesn't know, a Kokopelli is Navajo Indian God of Wealth and Fertility.

World's Largest Kokopelli | Picture Courtesy : Google Image

As per the plan, we were supposed to visit Sedona Oak Creek Canyon and Bell Rock first and then head towards Grand Canyon. However, our driver cum guide suggested that it would be better to visit Sedona while coming back as traffic will be less and we can spend more time in Grand Canyon and hence the plan changed.

The first place we visited was Cameron Trading Post at Navajo. We reached at Navajo by 10:45 am and had an hour of stop there. During 1911, a swayback suspension bridge across the Colorado river which is now part of US Route 89. Soon after, two brothers, Hubert and C.D. Richardson established Cameron Trading Post, visited at that time only by the Navajo and Hopi locals to barter their wool, blankets, livestock for dry goods.
With the motels, art galleries constructed in red bricks, Cameron trading post, still carries the glory of past days. The art galleries here exhibits and sells the products made by native American of Navajo.

Bridge at Cameron Trading Post

Motel and Exhibit @ Cameron Trading Post

Buildings at Cameron Trading Post

This place has a good restaurant as well and we were suggested to have our lunch here.

After an hour or so, we started for South Rim of Grand Canyon and stopped at our first view point Lipan Point by 12:30 pm. Grand Canyon being one of my long-cherished destination, the view seemed to be birth taking beautiful to me.

View of Grand Canyon from Lipan Point

View of Grand Canyon from Lipan Point

View of Grand Canyon from Lipan Point

Formation of different layers @ Grand Canyon

This is a beauty that heart can never feel contained with. After enjoying the serenity of the place and a round of photo shooting, we headed towards the next view point.

Yaki Point was the next view point on our list. This place might not have the breathtaking beauty, but this place was definitely an adventure for us. There were no proper roads marked as Lipan point and we had to climb up and down to reach the cliff or the viewpoint which was really thrilling and exciting. This place has different sort of beauty which can't be described in words or captured in camera, it's only one's eyes and mind know what it is.

Crazy Photographers :)

Our next destination was Pipe Creek Vista, another viewpoint with mesmerizing beauty of nature truest form. We met here with a group of bicyclers who were cycling across the entire canyon, a definite and hardest travel goal!! :)



After visiting these viewpoints, our driver cum guide dropped us at 'Yavapai Point and Geological Museum' for a 30 minutes stop. Yavapai Point is claimed to be the best viewpoint of South Rim, however, I don't agree. The Geological Museum in-house a souvenir shop and lots of information about Grand Canyon.  I personally loved the 3D representation of the rims which elaboration of each level and the model of Grand Canyon.




After visiting the museum, we headed to Grand Canyon village. One of the famous places of the village is Hopi House, a native American style house which is also an  exhibit and shop for  native American products.


There were few more sale cum exhibits in the Grand Canyon village. The famous historical El Tovar hotel, which was built in 1901, is also situated in Grand Canyon village. We had a wish to have our lunch over there but it was so crowded and there was a big queue, we didn't want to take risk of our van leaving us behind :).




Around 4:30 pm, we headed out of Grand Canyon for returning back to Pheonix. Though we were promised to take Oak Creek Canyon and Bell Rocks in Sedona, our driver only took us to Bell Rock and that too just for few minutes.  We reached Sedona around 6 pm.



Finally, we headed to Pheonix and reached there by 9 pm.

Note : I am not really satisfied with Great Venture tours, the reason being they didn't make all the destinations as they promised, the driver was extremely talkative and annoying and gave lots of unnecessary breaks and wasted lots of time. So, I personally wouldn't recommend this travel agency.

Disclaimer: We went for this trip in July’2016. There are changes of rates and timings getting changed with time. I tried to provide as much as details are possible for the trip. For any further clarification please feel free to contact me @ dutshilpi@gmail.com