Here’s what I didn’t expect to do at the Grand Canyon: tear up watching a bird. After Santa Fe, we took the RV west for four nights of rim trails, long bike rides, and canyon views that don’t fit in a photo. But the moment that stuck was a pair of wild California condors soaring overhead, birds that were nearly gone from Earth entirely. More on that below.
Home Base: Trailer Village RV Park
Very much worth it. Trailer Village sits right inside the park, which turned out to be the whole game for us. There are trees, easy access to great trails, and we spent most days biking everywhere instead of dealing with the internal shuttle buses. This is Dennis’s ideal RV park: in the park (or close enough), with everything reachable by bike. Our first evening we biked from one of the highest points down to camp using a mix of trails and road, and skipped the shuttle entirely. If you travel with bikes, staying inside the park is a game-changer. We did get visited by multiple elk, and saw both elk females (cows) and their babies and deer with fawns walking around.
Thankfully, it was not as hot as we expected. Still in the 80s, but manageable, which for the Grand Canyon in summer felt like a gift.
The Hikes: Down Is Easy, Up Is… Character-Building
We did two of the classic below-the-rim hikes, and the pattern was the same both times: easy and glorious on the way down, a real workout on the way back up. That’s the canyon’s little joke, the elevation you cruise down in the cool morning is all still there waiting for you.
- South Kaibab to Cedar Ridge. The views open up fast on South Kaibab, and Ooh Aah Point (aptly named) is worth every step.
- Bright Angel to the 1.5-Mile Resthouse. A great taste of going down into the canyon without committing to the whole punishing thing.
Both are moderate: doable for most people if you go early, carry plenty of water, and respect the climb out. Start in the cool morning, both to beat the heat and to catch the best light. We saw multiple rock squirrels along the way; some kept their distance politely, and some came right at us to demand snacks.
Desert View Drive
We drove the whole thing, all the way east to the Desert View Watchtower. This is where the Colorado River really shows itself, snaking that gorgeous turquoise ribbon through the layered canyon far below. Pull off at the viewpoints along the way (Grandview, Moran, Lipan) and give yourself time. Each one frames the canyon a little differently.
My Personal Highlight: The Condors
This was the moment of the trip. We caught a ranger talk right as a mated pair of California condors soared overhead, and hearing their story while watching them fly was one of the most memorable parts of the trip.
If you don’t know it: the California condor, the largest flying bird in North America with a wingspan close to ten feet, was almost completely wiped out. By 1982 there were only about 22 left on the entire planet, largely because of lead poisoning. Condors are scavengers, and when they feed on carcasses left by hunters using lead ammunition, they ingest the fragments, which slowly and agonizingly shut down their organs. In 1987, in a last-ditch effort, biologists captured every single remaining wild condor and brought them all into captivity.
Then came the painstaking work of bringing them back. Condors are painfully slow breeders; they don’t mature until about six years old and typically lay just one egg every other year. So biologists used a trick called double clutching (and sometimes triple): they’d remove the first egg to incubate it themselves, which prompted the pair to lay another, and sometimes a third. The chicks were raised by hand using condor-head puppets, so they wouldn’t imprint on humans. Slowly, it worked. The first Arizona condors were released near the Grand Canyon at Vermilion Cliffs in 1996, the first free-flying condors in Arizona skies in nearly 80 years. Today there are over 500 in the world, more than half of them flying wild, though lead poisoning is still their number one threat.
Here’s the thing: most people seem to find condors a little ugly (you can tell by how completely absent they are from the souvenir shops; all the mugs and magnets go to the cuter animals). But I think they’re wonderful, and I feel incredibly blessed to have watched a wild pair soar over the canyon they were so nearly lost from. If you get the chance to see one, take it.
Our Favorite Thing: Biking in the Park
Worth its own mention: staying inside the park with bikes changed how we experienced it. Instead of waiting on shuttles, we pedaled the Rim Trail and the greenway, stopped wherever we wanted, and covered a lot of ground on our own schedule. If you can bring bikes (or rent them), do. We loaded the bikes in the shuttle for the trip up (Dennis did not have his electric bike, and it was a LOT of uphill) and then biked down starting at Hermit’s Trailhead. We saw, stopped, photographed, and admired most points on the way down (Pima, Monument Creek, Mohave Point, Hopi Point, Maricopa), visited the Yavapai Point and Geology museum, and the very busy Mather’s Point. The further up you go, the more isolated (and private) the Points are.
🚫 What to Skip
Sunset at Hopi Point. It’s beautiful, but it’s a zoo, packed shoulder-to-shoulder with shuttle crowds. If you walk a little way up the trail from the main viewpoint, there’s a quieter spot with an equally gorgeous view and a fraction of the people (close to Mohave Point). The Yavapai Geology Museum was ho-hum, and frankly so was the visitor center – Although I did enjoy hearing about the story of the native population who have made the Canyon their home for hundreds of years. There’s a native village that still survives to this day called Supai, which is home to the Havasupai Tribe.
🍽 Eating (Mostly at Camp)
We’d stocked up in Santa Fe, but the grocery store inside the park actually had a decent plant-based selection, so we shopped there a few times for ingredients and cooked most meals at camp. We did try a portobello mushroom burger at one of the park restaurants, and honestly? It was just meh and it was overpriced.
TL;DR – Grand Canyon by RV
- Trailer Village RV Park = worth it. Inside the park, tree-shaded, and bike-everything access.
- Bring bikes (e-bikes if possible). Skip the shuttles, pedal the rim on your own schedule.
- South Kaibab to Cedar Ridge + Bright Angel to 1.5-Mile Resthouse = do both. Easy down, tough up. Go early, carry water.
- Desert View Drive = go all the way to the Watchtower. Best look at the Colorado River.
- California condors = the highlight. Catch a ranger talk. Back from 22 birds to 500+. See them if you can.
- Sunset at Hopi Point = skip the crowd. Walk a little up the trail for the same view in peace.
- Food = cook at camp. Grocery store inside the park has plant-based options; the plant-based options at restaurants inside were overpriced and not that delicious.
- Heat = milder than expected. Low 80s and manageable in early summer.