AZ - March 2018 - Days 3-4

 March 9^th, 2018 (Friday)

What an exciting day! A while back, on Facebook, I had reconnected with a friend that I had made in middle school. We were able to coordinate a meet-up during our trip to AZ.  We met up for breakfast at a place called Kneaders Bakery & Cafe. It was super yummy and the company was awesome! I was so happy to meet up in person!

Tonto National Monument - Lower Cliff Dwelling

Tonto National Monument 

After our meet up, we headed to Tonto National Monument. Tonto National Monument is home to two Cliff Dwellings. The Lower Cliff Dwelling is a steep, paved one-mile hike. You must start the upward hike by 4pm.  The Upper Cliff Dwelling is only viewable if you take the guided tour, which requires a reservation and only allows 6 people per tour.  We did not visit the Upper Cliff Dwelling during our visit (tour takes 3 to 4 hours and is a 3 mile hike). The Cliff Dwellings are estimated to be about 700 years old. There is a video at the visitor center - shown outdoors near the visitor center exit to the Lower Cliff Dwelling. Visitors were very disrespectful with talking loudly and ignoring the fact that a video was being played. There is a $7 fee for those over 15 years old to walk up to the cliff dwelling (free if you have a NPS pass).

The Tonto National Forest surrounds the Tonto National Monument. The visitor center for the National Forest is very near the National Monument.  There are many hiking trails available in the National Forest. There is a really cool bridge and the dam right near the visitor center.

Tonto National Forest

Onward and upward we go – Sedona here we come!  We stopped to snoop around in the old mining town of Jerome before heading into Sedona. We had previously visited Jerome and Sedona, but both places are worth a second visit or more!

For the next three nights, we stayed at Sedona Summit – very nice place. After checking in, we headed into Sedona for some food.  We tried the Pisa Lisa Restaurant, which specializes in wood-fired pizza. The pizza was very good – no burned crust here.

March 10^th, 2018 (Saturday)

Grand Canyon National Park

We left Sedona early to get to the Grand Canyon National Park. The annual park pass got us in at no cost – if you do need to pay it is $30 per car. We parking in Lot 2, which I think might be the closest one to the visitor center. There was plenty of parking available when we arrived at 9am. Rain was in the forecast so we headed to the trails first thing.

Grand Canyon National Park

Starting at Mather Point, we headed west along the Rim Trail. We stopped to check out numerous views along the way, including the Yavapai Point Geology Museum. We reached the Grand Canyon Village area around 11 SM and checked out the buildings in the area including: the 1905 Hopi House (designed to resemble an ancient pueblo), Verkamp’s Visitor Center, Lookout Studio and Kolb Studio. We decided to have lunch at Bright Angel Lodge before continuing west on the trail. Lunch was decent in taste and price. We hopped on the bus at the Hermits Rest Route Transfer and rode until we reached Monument Creek Vista. Exiting the bus, we walked west on the Greenway Trail until we reached Pima Point, where we hopped back on the bus. I had seen a recommendation that this portion of the park was a lovely walk. It was a bit disappointing that there were not a lot of canyon views, the plants did provide nice diversity. We would have continued to walk to the end of the trail at the Hermits Rest bus stop but it looked like rain in the distance. The bus stops at Hermits Rest for 10-15 minutes, allowing time to jump off, take a few photos, check out the gift shop, used the bathroom, before hopping back on the bus. Hermit’s Rest was opened in 1914 and supposedly provides amazing sunset views.

Grand Canyon National Park

Once getting back to the bus transfer station, the line was long to get on the bus to the visitor center. Buses arrive at each bus stop every 10-15 minutes. We had to wait for the third bus before we were able to get on.  We debated about walking down the street to the next station, if we did not get on that third bus we were going to.  The buses are nothing fancy, but we were fortunate to see five Elk near Trailer Village. 

Back at the visitor center, we checked out the limited displays before watching the NPS video, which is about 25 minutes long and starts every 30 minutes. The video was just okay – for sure skip it if you do not have a lot of time. Exiting the video the rain had started.

Grand Canyon National Park - Watchtower

Leaving the visitor center area, we headed east (and stayed ahead of the rain) to the Tusayan Museum and Ruin. The museum was okay – it talked about the Indian Tribes from the area. The sky was a little clearer and we stopped at the Navajo Point lookout.  From the lookout, you could see the 70-foot-tall Desert View Watchtower, which was just a little further to the east.  The Watchtower is super neat! The interior and exterior are both impressive, as are the views from both inside and outside the tower.  The tower was designed in 1932 to resemble a prehistoric Puebloan kiva (a round room used for community meetings and religious rituals).

We were surprised that when we entered the park in the morning that there was not a Grand Canyon sign.  The sign is located at the east park entrance. Of course we stopped to snap a picture!

There was one hike that I had read about that was supposed to be great that we did not have time for was a hike to Showstone Point. The trail starts about 1.2 miles east of the Yaki Point Road, where you hike down a dirt road to reach the point.  Parking is available along the Desert View Drive roadside.  There was also a guided hike along Cedar Ridge that would have been nice to check out. The hike starts at 8am and is 3 miles long (2-4 hours).