An artist makes an impression of the Canyon Travellers often say you should never return to a place you have enjoyed because it usually ends in disappointment.
Quite often they are right. After all you will never be able to recreate the excitement of visiting a place for the first time or the memory of finding that special place to be treasured always.
There are, of course, exceptions to the rule, the rarity which can be visited many times and on each occasion can create new memories and reveal new places which can be explored for the first time.
One of those rare exceptions is the Grand Canyon. The first time I visited it was around 20 or so years ago when my children were young. We were only day trippers, but the memory of my first view of the South Rim opening up a thousand feet or so below me, still takes my breath away.
With my children, now fully fledged and flown, I returned to the South Rim, this time staying for two nights at the Yavapai Lodge. And to my delight, the magnificence and dizzying power of this incredible place left me as breathless and awestruck as it did all those years ago.
Of course, since the time of my first visit, things around the canyon have changed. There is now the lodge at Yavapai Point with six two-storey blocks of rooms from doubles through to family rooms. There is also a whole network of dedicated and tarmacked footpaths, from one end of the Rim to the other, easily accessible to people of all ages and abilities and linked by free buses from East to West.
For those who enjoy hiking, the ready-made paths don’t detract from the experience. It may not be as rough and rugged as it may have once been, but each and every turn and elevation reveals a panorama as stunning as the previous one.
Staying within the huge national park also gives keen photographers the opportunity to take their cameras into the night and take pictures of the night sky in total darkness without a smidgeon of light pollution.
I don’t expect to wait another 20 or so years for my third visit to the Canyon, but the next time it will be to the less accessible and apparently more spectacular North Rim. I can’t wait to start making even more new memories of the same extraordinary place, from a different perspective.
Quite often they are right. After all you will never be able to recreate the excitement of visiting a place for the first time or the memory of finding that special place to be treasured always.
There are, of course, exceptions to the rule, the rarity which can be visited many times and on each occasion can create new memories and reveal new places which can be explored for the first time.
One of those rare exceptions is the Grand Canyon. The first time I visited it was around 20 or so years ago when my children were young. We were only day trippers, but the memory of my first view of the South Rim opening up a thousand feet or so below me, still takes my breath away.
With my children, now fully fledged and flown, I returned to the South Rim, this time staying for two nights at the Yavapai Lodge. And to my delight, the magnificence and dizzying power of this incredible place left me as breathless and awestruck as it did all those years ago.
Of course, since the time of my first visit, things around the canyon have changed. There is now the lodge at Yavapai Point with six two-storey blocks of rooms from doubles through to family rooms. There is also a whole network of dedicated and tarmacked footpaths, from one end of the Rim to the other, easily accessible to people of all ages and abilities and linked by free buses from East to West.
For those who enjoy hiking, the ready-made paths don’t detract from the experience. It may not be as rough and rugged as it may have once been, but each and every turn and elevation reveals a panorama as stunning as the previous one.
Staying within the huge national park also gives keen photographers the opportunity to take their cameras into the night and take pictures of the night sky in total darkness without a smidgeon of light pollution.
I don’t expect to wait another 20 or so years for my third visit to the Canyon, but the next time it will be to the less accessible and apparently more spectacular North Rim. I can’t wait to start making even more new memories of the same extraordinary place, from a different perspective.
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