I have wanted to go back to The Grand Canyon for decades. It was 43 years since my last visit and after doing extensive research on the history of the railroads, for my paper, I was ready.
The Santa Fe Railroad was instrumental in bringing the passengers from the East Coast, over to the beautiful areas of our Country, that had never been extensively explored. One of the main ones was The Grand Canyon. The Grand Canyon village on the south rim has some buildings that date back to the 1800’s. They are old, but that is part of their charm. You feel like you are brought back to those times when people did not have the means to get to remote places.
We ended up taking the Southwest Chief from Los Angeles to Flagstaff. We rented a car there and after spending the day checking out Flagstaff, we drove the 90 minutes to the South Rim of The Grand Canyon. If you want the entire rail experience, you can book the Grand Canyon Railroad in Williams, Arizona and get brought right to the rim by rail. You still get off the train at Flagstaff and they bus you over to Williams, for pick up by the train.
As to booking hotels, the 5 hotels inside the park are all handled by Xanterra. Bright Angel Lodge, El Tovar Hotel, Thunderbird Lodge, Kachina Lodge, and Maswik Lodge. Each hotel varies in price and Maswik is the only one not on the rim. It is ¼ mile from the rim of the Grand Canyon. The bus has a stop right in front, so you can get to the locations on the rim fairly easily.
We booked 2 nights in the Maswik Lodge, which was the only hotel that had 2 consecutive nights available. Since we had the rental car, the distance to the rim was no problem for us…or so we thought.
A word to the wise, there is no parking for the hotels, that day visitors can’t use. So, you have problems getting to the close-in parking sites, almost from the start of the day. We ended up moving our car in the evening, to have it right by our room in the Maswik Lodge, especially to load and unload our luggage.
Food is a problem, to a certain degree. The fine dining rooms have bookings that you need to make months in advance. We did find that The Bright Angel Lodge has a nice restaurant inside, called the Fred Harvey Burger, which doesn’t seem to need reservations. We ate there twice and enjoyed both meals. Most of the other places are of the grab-and-go type. We made use of them several times. I was surprised at the lack of options offered at a premiere national park. Would it keep me away? No way. The Grand Canyon is so very beautiful.
Make the time to visit, if you are able and have time to do so.
