Grand Canyon

Golden_HVAC wrote:

paulj wrote:
I believe the Sky Bridge operated by the Halapai Reservation is the closest Grand Canyon view to Las Vegas. Maybe you want to catch a tour rather than drive yourself.

http://www.grandcanyonwest.com/skywalktour.php

I think it is highway 93 that goes just about straight north from Kingman towards Las Vegas, and the new overlook is along that highway. However the skywalk is several (dozen) miles west of the "Grand Canyon" and is not part of the National Park.

In the winter, Kingman is near sea level (well about 300 - 400' elevation) and Williams is closer to 5,500 or 6,000 feet elevation and likely to have snow on the ground. The south rim is likely to have snow on the ground at this time of year too - even ice on the roads is possible. The north rim is likely to have 3-4 feet of snow on everything, with all the roads closed.

So if you like snow, then winter is the time to visit the south rim. You can still see snow in May at the north rim, depending on the snow pack that winter. It is 7,500' elevation.

You can check the sky bridge. It is possible that it is not nearly as cold as the Grand Canyon, and might be a much lower elevation. From what I hear, the Indians wanted to keep the last 10 miles of the road to the skywalk primitive, so that most people would take a tour operated 4 wheel drive vehicle in and out of the reservation.

Fred.

check your map average elv. for kingman is about 3300 elv
some years we would get snow as late as March

At the North Rim you see 10% of the Grand Canyon.

For someone returning to Oregon from a winter in Arizona, the mid-May opening date for North Rim might be an issue.

Everyone has there own opinion and mine is the North Rim is much nicer than the more popular easier to get to South Rim.

Point is - do you want to see the Grand Canyon or do you want a hokey train ride or boring drive? You can take train rides lots of places; Grand Canyon only one place.

Lauren wrote:
South Rim is where you want to be - at Trailer Village. The train ride from Williams is hokey, expensive and goes thru barren land for the most part.

It's the train not the ride, the "drive" is hokey as all get out. Just pointing out that the train is for train lovers.

South Rim is where you want to be - at Trailer Village. The train ride from Williams is hokey, expensive and goes thru barren land for the most part. If you are going to go to the Grand Canyon (one of our favorite places and been there many times) GO TO the Grand Canyon! Seeing it midday is not SEEING it - you want to be there for sunrises and sunsets for the color and shadows. You miss that by driving or taking the train and seeing it midday. It is the difference of seeing it vs saying you were there.

From Google Maps, a side trip to the West Rim adds a 100 mile trip to the drive between between Kingman and Las Vegas. Kingman to the South Rim is 175 miles. If I were that far east, I'd seriously consider taking US89 (with the US89T detour) to Page and points north (I15 and I84 to Oregon), rather than backtracking to Kingman and Las Vegas.

Depends on your concepts of scale, driving times. For someone who live in these open areas, Colorado Plateau, Southwest, Great Plains, someplace 150-200 miles away might be "just north" and will use that kind of description. A 400 mile round trip is quite reasonable for a day's visit with "nearby" family, 200-300 mile round trip is"near" for an evening at the theater.

I would not consider a Meteor Crater visit as something to see same day as the Grand Canyon, not because of driiving distance, rather because thr Grand Canyon deserves more of your time. However, we have visited Meteor Crater as a stop one a one-day drive from Tucumcari to Phoenix, and at least once visited the south rim of the GC on a day trip out of Phoenix.

While Dennis always has great input we stayed at the railway RV park and took the train. That said we had our son and his friend 12 and 10 with us and into trains, so the ride was good. We enjoyed Williams as it was summer and they had western shows each night on old route 66 and it was a short walk from the park.
If you are not into or have kids that are into I agree with Dennis the train is kind of a nonevent. I can assure you there will be freezing temps from about Halloween through Easter at least. Went through fall of 12 and stayed in Williams overnight and had to disconnect water because of freezing over night.