Well another trip to Grand Canyon National Park has come and gone….and still no view for Kelly. Unfortunately for the second year in a row we visited the Grand Canyon in winter while it has been socked in with snow. To add insult to the whole thing the day before we arrived there were perfect views for miles! I think we just have a January curse.

We arrived at the park at about 10 am after making the three hour drive from Phoenix. The weather leading up to the park was pretty good all morning so we were hopeful that maybe we would at least get slightly better views than last year, but alas, it was not meant to be. As soon as we crossed into the park boundary it was as if mother nature flipped a switch and turned on the storm. We arrived at the visitor center parking lot not long after but there was already several inches of snow covering everything. We lamented our crummy luck for a moment but then just put on our jackets and walked over to the rim. The views were essentially non existent but we still managed to have a good laugh about it. Luckily this was just one short stop on a longer trip.

The clearest view we managed to get!

I swear the Grand Canyon is out there somewhere.

More great views of the canyon edge!

Looking down the path along the edge of the rim.

Even Lego Ranger can’t believe our bad luck.

We didn’t hang around long in the park since there really wasn’t much to do besides visit the gift shop. We hoped to take Route 64 towards Desert View and Cameron, AZ beyond but due to the weather the park service closed the road. When I inquired about when it might reopen I was told maybe Monday at the earliest (It was Thursday)! Since we already had hotel reservations in Page, AZ for the night we had to drive all the way back down and around through Flagstaff which added about 2 hours to our drive. It wasn’t a real promising way to start our trip but luckily by the time we got a little bit north of Flagstaff the sky opened up a little bit and we at least got a little blue sky, at least for a few minutes. Along the way we drove in and out of rain storms before finally arriving at the outskirts of Page. In the past we have gotten great views from the hills outside of Page but with the cloudy skies things were more muted than normal, but still pretty great compared to New Jersey!

View looking towards the North Rim of the Grand Canyon from outside of Page Arizona.

After taking in the views we continued on our way to Page, but along the way we passed the parking lot for Horseshoe Bend, which for some reason I have never bothered stopping at. Since we didn’t do much besides drive up to this point we decided to swing back around and take a look. It turned out to be a great decision. I will be posting the details of Horseshoe Bend in another upcoming post so keep an eye out. Despite our bad luck we will be back again to the Grand Canyon, third times a charm right? Although next time maybe we will go in August.