Our "Grand" Grand Canyon Spring Break Adventure, Pt. 1: Arriving At The Canyon

Our family has wanted to visit the Grand Canyon for a long time now. We live in Arizona, the "Grand Canyon State," for goodness' sake; surely we owed it to ourselves to see what all the fuss was about? Nathan and I took a short trip to the canyon with my parents many years ago, when Lorelai was still a toddler. For a while now, we had been seriously considering a return trip. Our kids are now mature and independent enough that they would both remember the trip and enjoy it.

But due to this and that, a trip to the Grand Canyon had always remained a "someday trip" in our minds...at least, until early this year. When our family was writing up our New Year's resolutions in January, we put "Camp At The Grand Canyon" on the list. For some reason, writing it down galvanized our resolve. We felt the need to finally take on this challenge (for us, all camping trips are a challenge; look at our trip to Puerto Penasco as just one example).

So, to get the ball rolling, we chose an actual date: we determined to take the camping trip over our kids' Spring Break in mid-March. We booked our campsite online for March 12th & 13th (good thing we booked it online; when we got there, we discovered the park's campsites were full to capacity!). Between finishing up the school play, Aurora's soccer season (more on that later), and the usual rush at school leading up to Spring Break, we fell behind schedule in our preparations a bit, but we managed to pull ourselves together and get the car loaded up in time.

From our home, it was about a five-hour drive up to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. We stopped about halfway up, in northern Phoenix, at a very yummy place called Cafe Zupas. Technically, it is just a soup/salad/sandwich place, but it was all so fresh, creative, and flavorful that it ended up being a great find.

Plus, they have an Italian soda bar at their drink station! Who doesn't love that? And they include a chocolate-covered strawberry with every meal! What I'm trying to say is, Cafe Zupas is worth at least one visit.

After finishing our lunch and finally making our way out of Phoenix, it was fairly smooth sailing until the end of the trip. We had to make a quick stop in Flagstaff on the way up to pick up a few small items we'd forgotten; we arrived at Grand Canyon National Park right around dinnertime.

Even though we needed to set up our tent before dark, we still decided to zip over to Mather Point (located just outside the park's main visitor's center). Nathan and I reasoned that the kids would at least like a glimpse of the canyon that day...the reason we had driven all that way!

We were all suitably impressed. I think evening is a terrific time to get a look at the Grand Canyon; the descending sun creates an impressive riot of colors and shadows all along the canyon's walls. There is so much of its character revealed at those twilight hours! We didn't stay long to admire it, though...we had to hurry to our campsite and get ourselves squared away for the night.

We reserved a spot at Mather Campground, about a mile's walk from the South Rim. As campsites go, this was definitely one of the cozier locations we'd stayed in. There were plenty of trees/shade around us; we had a picnic table and a fire pit; and we had plenty of room to pitch our tent. Some of the tent poles had gotten pretty twisted around during our windy Rocky Point trip, but thankfully we got it all straightened out and the tent went up with no problem. We even managed to get our fire going and dinner cooked (carne asada, beans & tortillas) before it got too dark.

This is just some of the snow we saw dusted over everything

There was just one catch with this lovely campsite: it was pretty cold. I mean, cold. When we booked our camping trip (back in January), we knew we were risking chilly weather by visiting at that time of year. The Grand Canyon's South Rim is located more than 6,000 feet above sea level, and is a few hundred miles north of our sunny corner of Arizona. It follows that winter would last longer in that area. (In fact, the canyon's North Rim is completely closed to all campers in March due to the harsh conditions.) As we were driving between Flagstaff and Tusayan (the small village outside the park), we saw patches of snow everywhere along the ground. Once inside the park, we saw several places which were dusted with old snowfall. Clearly, the weather hadn't "warmed up" to a comfortable level yet.

As usual, our girls didn't well heed our warnings when we told them to wear their coats outside. When Lorelai got out of the car to check out Mather Point, she didn't put her coat on, insisting that she wouldn't need it. About 15 minutes later, she was shivering and very cold. After dinner was cooking, I warned Nathan that he'd better go buy more firewood, so we could have something to warm up to the following morning.

The cold ended up being quite a shock for our kids. It's one thing to warn them of the impending chilly weather while we're all sitting in our warm, comfortable home in Sahuarita. It's quite another thing to sit around a fire while the temperature drops below freezing, and the only thing protecting you from the elements is a thin tent and a (hopefully warm enough) sleeping bag. It didn't really sink in what a night we were in for until we were in the middle of it. Poor Aurora didn't even put on extra layers when she went to sleep that night; as a result, she woke up several times shivering and crying from cold and discomfort.

When I checked the weather later on, after our trip, I discovered that the overnight low temperature was a chilling 24 degrees Fahrenheit. When I was a teen, I was snowed on at my first Girls' Camp, and that was a very cold night. Other than that, I can't remember ever being so cold at night in my life. It was a shock to the system, and very difficult for all of us. But somehow, we survived! We were definitely nervous going into the evening, and I would never call our sleep that night "restful." But now that it is all over, we can definitely say it is something we "survived"! It will be a story to tell our friends and family in years to come. The next morning, we had a lot of excitement planned, but first we had to regain feeling in our toes and fingers...they felt numb for hours!