Things that Surprised us about the Grand Canyon

although matt and i had been to the grand canyon before we had never done it properly until our very last trip there and after visiting we've realized that the grand canyon is more than a giant pit in the ground that you can see from outer space we learned 14 interesting things about the grand canyon we're mountain cheryl with we're in the rockies in this video we're going to cover 14 surprising things about the grand canyon and we've separated it out by categories so here we go all right our first three have to do with the animals of the grand canyon so number one the animals are dangerously friendly there are actually animals at the grand canyon i think normally people think about ravens being there and there are plenty of ravens that will wreak havoc on your campsite if you leave stuff out but there's also deer and elk and squirrels generally when you visit a national park you're taught to not approach the wildlife but at the grand canyon the wildlife will approach you because humans are near something that's very scarce at the grand canyon which is water so we were at the north at the south rim of the grand canyon and an elk walked right up to get a drink of water right at the bathroom and actually blocked off the bathroom from people being able to use it so it was kind of funny okay number two is on the north rim of the grand canyon there is something called the kaibab squirrel this we had never heard about before but apparently this squirrel only exists on the north rim of the grand canyon there's a little town there called jacob lake which doesn't have a lake actually maybe that was another surprising thing the unofficial 15th surprise but the kaibab the funny thing is i was in the the shop in the store at jacob lake and i saw these stickers for this squirrel and then i saw a big painting for the squirrel and turns out they are very proud of the kaibab squirrel which only exists in their town the only place in the world the kaibab squirrel which is a really cool looking squirrel but and we saw plenty of squirrels on this trip but never once did we see the kai dab squirrel they even have a monument to the squirrel there all right number three the grand canyon is also home to the very rare california condor the california condor was almost extinct in 1987 and has since made a comeback but it is the largest bird in north america with a 9.6 foot wingspan and it looks kind of like a vulture and they are incredible birds whenever you're looking over the canyon you're always kind of looking for one of those california condors but we actually saw some hanging out at the navajo bridge which is between the north and south rim and it was really one of the most memorable things we saw on our trip we were quite fortunate we saw a ranger who was tracking the california condors in grand canyon and they have a nest a couple of nesting spots there the birds will fly overhead some of them are raven some of them are condors that can be a little bit difficult to tell but the ranger was telling us all sorts of interesting information about the condor this species by the way was there was there were only 22 birds left of the california condors in 1987 and they captured every single one of them and did a really intensive breeding program to to rejuvenate the species and now there are over a thousand out there and they track them all pretty much um but we were in for a real treat when we stopped at the navajo bridge and saw these condors that were right under our feet hanging out on the bridge it was really amazing the next three items have to do with just the land and the topography of grand canyon so number four is that the north or at the top of the grand canyon it is forest it is pine trees it's um not what you think of when you think of the grand canyon you think of this big hole you think of the desert the heat and all that oh i was legit expecting like the cartoons with the single cactus in the background a bunch of sand it was completely not what i thought it was going to be yes very high elevation i think over six thousand feet on the south rim i think over seven thousand feet on the north rim they have winter there with snow and all that and the trees are ponderosa pines which uh have this reddish bark to them they're real kind of distinct from other pine trees that you see and if you smell them they smell like butterscotch or vanilla this sounds kind of funny to mix those two up but when you smell them there really is a hint of both of those it really like when i was looking over the edge of the grand canyon i took a second to like close my eyes and sense the other things around and i could smell those trees so while you're there don't miss out on the good smells of the grand canyon okay number five the lower you go into the canyon the hotter it gets i think that when you're up on the rim and you think oh man that valley must be so relaxing there's a river running through it but that's not how it is um the grand canyon like matt said about 6000 feet between the rim and the bottom depending on where you're at and for every thousand feet you descend the temperature goes up three to four degrees and so it could be eighty degrees on the top of the rim but a hundred degrees in the canyon and so as you get ready to go on your hikes just think about it's not getting any cooler the two hikes we went on we descended a thousand feet a thousand to fifteen hundred feet and it got noticeably warmer okay number six is that all the drinking water at the grand canyon comes from one spring called roaring spring this is located on the north rim you can actually hike to the spring and take a look at it there's also some viewpoints you can look at it well they built all their water pipeline system from this spring of course it flows down to the the river below and then they pump that water up the other side to the south rim and that is where all the drinking water comes from and the pipeline that they installed i think they i believe they installed it back in the 1960s which is an absolute must for anybody who's well anybody who visits the grand canyon is using the water from roaring spring whether you're up on the ramp or whether you're hiking down into the canyon and the pipeline was only built to last about 30 years and it's now been what 50 or 60 years or something like that since it was built so it's way out lived its intended life span and any time that there's a leak in the line it costs them just a ton of money to go fix it but they have to fix it very quickly it is their number it is the grand canyon parks number one concern right now is rebuilding this water line because if this thing fails they have to shut the park down there will be no visitation because there's really no close water anywhere nearby it's pretty crazy that the six million people visit this park and that one spring can sustain all those visitors and all the employees just blows my mind incredible yeah oh and the estimated cost to repair this entire system is like 150 million dollars which is more than is three times as much as all the national parks receive in a year for their repair budgets they're saying this is the number one issue and the entire national park service is getting the money to fund this thing that's incredible all right give this video a like if you are liking it now moving on our next couple have to do with unpleasant surprises we had at the grand canyon and the first one was drought like matt said water is a big deal at the grand canyon it's really interesting that they do have all these pine trees but it is a desert and and the current conditions when we were there just recently was we are in a drought so much to the extent that we were evacuated from our campground uh at jacob lakes due to fire danger because of the drought they evacuated the entire kaibab cave kaibab forest um and some of the surrounding forests for that the the national parks are on a completely different system but if you were going to be staying at jacob lake or in that kaibab forest you no longer had a place to stay and it was it made the it really made when you hear about droughts and the fires in the west it really made that come to to reality for me on how dangerous these drought conditions can be okay number eight is that the canyon is more dangerous than the famous angels landing hike at zion national park angel's landing hike there's on average about one death per year on that hike grand canyon averages about 12 deaths per year and we can see why after having visited there when they were there four kids and i i told them kids do not run in front of me and get up near the edge of the canyon because you never know and sure enough first night we were there went watch the uh sunset and where we went there were no fences uh it would be relatively easy to just slip right off the edge into a free fall one sign that i saw there said they have to assist around 600 people a year i believe who are down in the canyon suffering from something like heat stroke or whatever a cyst mean that they would be giving them iv or getting them to a place of safety they flight rescue about over a hundred people per year i believe right where they they actually flying out of the canyon to an emergency room or something like that a lot of these are people who are trying to run across the they're trying to run from room to rim and they they end up just uh giving out at some point because of the heat and the toll yeah the heat is really the the of the 12 deaths two to three of them are due to falls but most of the problems that happen in the grand canyon are like car accidents or or heat problems heat related problems with the lack of water all right number nine was pollution what a disappointment you drive out to arizona you get to the room you look into the grand canyon and a lot of your view is impeded by a cloud of smog it's actually a little i think it kind of depends on the day that you're there but when we were there the grand canyon and we were there for a whole week i would say there was smog in the grand canyon the entire time now i know that efforts been made since the 1980s to clean this up but california las vegas are big big towns big places that have a lot of people a lot of smog that blows into the grand canyon and just how it all works the smog gets trapped in there and it does make it a little difficult to see it so that was our unpleasant surprise still beautiful but could be prettier one of the interesting issues the national park service is dealing with right now is you know their land is blocked off they can protect that land as best as possible but the air pollution and something we learned at bryce canyon was light pollution coming in this is something the national park service is trying to work with nearby neighboring communities to to help the whole experience there okay number 10 is these are our pleasant surprises now these are the pleasant surprises yes number 10 is that the grand canyon was not as crowded as we thought it would be uh this is supposed to be the most crazy busy year everybody's traveling after covet nobody can travel uh foreign really and we were there in june like peak travel season peak travel we thought it was just fine i mean really it was just fine i did not even really think about the crowds once there's plenty of people of course but i just didn't think about the crowds at all the grand canyon's big and it has a big tourist season it's not like everyone's trying to fit the grand canyon in in four months of the year people can visit the the south rim year round and they do and so when you go to go there and people tell you about the crowds i mean yeah at most viewpoints you're going to be sharing it with some other people but it's not like you're going to be sharing it with 800 of your closest friends like when you look at old faithful at yellowstone right that i thought the crowds were and even finding parking not that big of a deal especially at the lookouts because people get out of their car they look out and they go back to their car so even if you have to wait for a minute it's just a minute for the lookout ninety percent of the people visit the park at the south rim so we did go around to the north rim and viewed it from there as well and that was an even more pleasant experience only 10 of the visitors go to the north rim and it was like a whole different world on the other side don't you think just this relaxing world people sitting in their chairs at the lodge enjoying the view of the grand canyon from there watching the sunrise and sunset anyway that was a very pleasant surprise and we love the grand canyon so much that we're going to be making a guide like an itinerary and an audio guide really really soon for you so be waiting for that it's gonna show up on our website we're in the rockies.com we already have itineraries and audio guides for some other places we've been but we have one coming for the grand canyon soon so check that out and it has some wonderful stories well maybe i'll get to that one too that's another surprise how many great stories the grand canyon has okay the next is number 11. the the south rim i would say has the most charming village of all the national parks i've ever been to i loved it it has nice restaurants like el tavar it has a cool old-time train that comes in from williams every day for to bring tourists the mules it's just charming a great little village and as we said before don't let people scare you about the crowds the crowds are manageable it is not bad and it's very very very cute the architecture in the park is cute all mostly designed by a a gal named mary jane coulter who uh we'll cover one of our our guides here i'm sure i'll talk about her on our videos quite a bit but really impressive lady who did most of the architecture on this she designed the desert tower at the one end and herman's rest at the other end played a part in designing el tivar and on the on the north rim the lodge and the visitor center very pretty there too we love we love the village on the south rim but at the north rim also charming great great atmosphere to just sit at the lodge look out the windows look into the canyon i mean it seriously it's like a little getaway just cabin weekend getaway in the northwest two thumbs up for relaxing at the gra at the grand canyon it's nice all right number 12 grand canyon is actually pretty pet friendly norm when you go to national parks it's like don't bring your pet and and pets are not allowed on the trails hiking into the canyon but when you go to the rim to you know look into the canyon watch a sunset watch a sunrise i saw plenty of puppies people had their pets there and it was not a big deal and so i would say and oh also i noticed that they had a kennel by the maswick um lodge they had a kennel for dogs too so i would say this is one of the pet-friendlier parks so if you like to travel with your doggy i'd say grand canyon is a thumbs up number 13 this was a pleasant surprise that brought complete joy to my heart there are services everywhere whenever we travel to a new place i get anxious about the availability of food and water i want to make sure that we have what we need and to my pleasant surprise there was a lot of food and water available at places you wouldn't think um one the one that really surprised me was hermit's rest you know you take the shuttle clear out and it you seem like you're out in the middle of nowhere and then all of a sudden there's a little cafe there a little counter service restaurant where you can get some sandwiches and ice cream and lots of places to fill up your water so if you if you have a similar condition of worrying about those things don't worry about it at the grand canyon there's water spigots available even even as you hike down the trails like bright angel there's water spigots down bright angel trail and so you'll you'll be able to find water spigots at the trail heads you'll be able to find food at a lot of different places so don't stress about the food availability and there's a nice general store within the canyon village too okay finally number 14 is just kind of an aside interesting fact that i learned so i went to the grand canyon visitor center in tucson which is a city a couple miles south of the grand canyon village and so it's not the official visitor center but they had a really cool display showing the entire map of the whole grand canyon with the timeline one of the things that happened was in 1922 a guy landed an airplane at the bottom of the grand canyon now this just blew me away i mean first of all 1922 aviation was still pretty young at that point so this guy was just flying he was a stunt pilot from kansas and one of the call brothers at the grand canyon who ran a photography studio there we'll talk about that more later too they wanted to generate a little publicity so they contacted this guy and said hey could you land a plane at the bottom of the grand canyon now some people said it was impossible because of the way the winds um flow in the canyon but he stated it out and he figured man i think it's possible to do it so he not only did it but he did it in style he was doing some loop-de-loops and stuff and then he only had a 500-foot landing pad so he wasn't at the very bottom because the colorado river is at the very very bottom right but then there's little plateaus as you go up in the grand canyon he found a little 500 foot plateau that he could land on apparently landed with about 50 feet to spare before it just dropped off into another canyon but did it they ended up recording this on video the guy's name was rv thomas which i just think was i just was amazed i thought that was such a cool story plenty of amazing stories about the grand canyon that we'll be sharing as we go forward here this is our first video on the grand canyon that we're doing we'll be doing plenty more and sharing plenty more stories from this incredible place with you if if you've been to the grand canyon and something surprised you please put it in the remarks share it with everybody yes and we will have a complete grand canyon playlist including a video that will be the ultimate trip planner on everything you need to make this vacation happen for yourself so please check that out and thanks for watching safe travels

Channel: We're in the Rockies

Views: 20,484

Keywords: Grand Canyon National Park, South rim, North rim, Kaibab Squirrel, California Condor, Roaring Spring, Pet Friendly

Id: he5xJX-Bq-A

Length: 18min 25sec (1105 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 11 2021