What is something you’ve dedicated your life to or hope to one day? Listen to North Rim visitors and park employees as they share some of their lifelong commitments—what getting married in a national park is like, hard-earned wisdom, and visions for a better future. And learn where the North Rim Wedding Site is!

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Transcript

Visitor 1: Love and acceptance. For all beings regardless of politics, gender, size, age, beliefs. All of each of us is welcome. Unity without uniformity. Love and hugs.

[“Behind the Scenery” music and speaking introduction]

Kamryn: Thanks for joining us today to listen to “Looking for Love and Commitment at the North Rim.” My name is Kamryn.

Doug: My name’s Ranger Doug and we are rangers at...

Kamryn: Grand Canyon 's North Rim! And today we'll be sharing stories of weddings, different dedications, commitments people have made in their lives, all in response to the prompt: Every year people share wedding vows at this very spot. What is something you've dedicated your life to or hope to one day?

Doug: But first of all, I wanted to share a little side trip we have in mind for you. The main developed area here at the North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park is the primary destination—lodge, campground, awesome views, Bright Angel Point trail. All of our visitors drive 45 miles on a dead-end road, and they end up at the lodge and or the campground to enjoy those views. But if you’re here for more than a day and you have a vehicle that is 22-foot length or less, then we have an awesome paved side trip, 23 miles all the way out to a very special view. Yeah, I consider the best views in all of the North Rim for their developed area it's called Cape Royal-Point Imperial Road. So I thought we could uh go explore that and check it out. We'll describe what's at the very end which was the source of this podcast. OK let's go. It takes about 45 minutes nonstop to drive all the way to the end of the road, which is what we recommend. We recommend folks drive there, do the walk out to Cape Royal, enjoy the views, and then on the return trip stop at all the overlooks and viewpoints. So here's what you have to see along the road. I really like the first 5 miles or so of the road. We're going through an earlier burn area and the whole hillsides are just loaded with small aspen trees and they're beautiful, brilliant green in early June when we're recording this podcast now. But later on, the third fourth week in September whole hillsides they turn golden color yellow reds all different beautiful hues as we have some of the best fall colors anywhere in the American West. After about 5 minutes of gradual climb we will cross a divide, we’ll drop down into this beautiful canyon and it's actually Bright Angel Canyon. And for folks that have ridden the mules, stopped on a river trip, or hiked down to Phantom Ranch, there's no way in the world you would expect that the very upper end of this canyon looks as beautiful and as lush as you're driving through now. This was the site of a Civilian Conservation Corps work camp in the 1930s. It was so cold they at night they even called it Ice Box Canyon. There's a good book called, “Ace in the Hole,” it profiles Company 818 of the Civilian Conservation Corps if you want to learn more about the North Rim Conservation Corps camps. Then we come to a “Y,” a fork in the road. If we turn left on that Y, it’s about a three mile side trip to Point Imperial which is the highest point on the rim anywhere in Grand Canyon National Park, little over 8800 feet. So let's not do that side trip today, let's continue south and what do we see?

Kamryn: Yeah so if we take that right in the Y we'll first pass by Greenland Lake. That will be on our right and that's a really cool sinkhole. Right now, there's a good amount of water in there and it will dry start drying up towards the end of the summer. But that's a short hike and you'll pass by the lake and then go towards this old little cabin. And then if we keep going along the road, to our left will be Vista Encantada and that is one of the picnic areas with ab overlook so nice views again of the canyon and the valley there, with a picnic area as well. Along the road, as we keep going, we'll pass Roosevelt Point on the left and that will be after a little bit more of a drive. Some good overlook as as well, a small trail, and then there's this rock with a quote right at the front of the overlook that kind of is Teddy Roosevelt saying to leave Grand Canyon as it is. We’ll continue through the beautiful ponderosa pine forest. It's super open here, very scenic, a lot of burns in this area to maintain that ponderosa pine forest and keep it healthy. Once we go down this little hill, we'll pass the Cape Final trailhead, so off to our left there's this dirt parking lot. There's a couple of trash cans there and that's a nice four-mile round trip hike out to Cape Final where you have beautiful views of the river and the canyon and you'll wind through the forest on the way there. Next, we have the Walhalla Overlook and Pueblo, so we'll pull off to the left here and this is the Walhalla Overlook. We've got awesome views of the Colorado River here and then if we cross the road and go to the right, we'll be at the Walhalla Pueblo and this is the largest village site that has been found on the North Rim from ancestral people whose descendants are still here today. We’ll keep going and just at the bottom of this hill here there's a pull off on the left and this is for the Cliff Springs trail. So if we go down across the road to the right, we'll get on this short trail about half a mile and you'll pass a granary and then get to cliff spring where water is dripping out of the cliff, the rocks there. And this is a little bit in the canyon itself so it's a nice short trail to get a taste of what canyon hiking is like. And then if we continue on the road, the last little bit, this tight turn this tight curve we’ll get to the big gravel parking lot at Cape Royal.

Doug: Well, we just arrived at the awesome view Cape Royal view. Ranger Kamryn, tell us about the trail, how we got here.

Kamryn: Yeah so it's a short trail about 0.4 miles to the end of the trail here. It's paved, it's pretty gradual slope with a little bit of a steeper slope right at the end but it's an awesome little trail. The first 100 yards you'll get to this nice bench that's in the shade most of the time. That's another great river view and you'll see right through Angel's Window so this big hole in the rock and right through there you can see Unkar Rapids. That’s mile 72 from Lee's Ferry where Grand Canyon itself starts but that's a great viewpoint, great place to stop and rest in the shade. As you keep going on the trail, we passed by the side trail to Angel’s Window, so that hole in the rock, you can actually go on top of that there. It's not for those with a fear of heights but it's got some really cool views, very steep drop offs if that is your cup of tea. And then we continued down all the way here to the end of the trailhead and Doug, what are we seeing?

Doug: Oh my gosh this has got to be the finest view on all of the North Rim area. I can look straight across from this overlook and see the Grandview Point area along the South Rim. We see much of the South Rim Road, it’s about 25 miles or so from the South Rim Village in the southwest to the Desert View Watchtower. And if you look over there in the southeast, you can actually see a small bump on the canyon rim. That is the famous Desert View Watchtower. It's probably about nine air miles from where we are here. Grandview Point looking straight south is about eight and if we swing our view over to the southwest it's about ten and a half air miles to the South Rim Village. And we really can't see the village during daylight hours, occasionally you catch a reflection off a windshield but at night you can see the diminished lights and pick out where the main South Rim Grand Canyon National Park Village is. Also, in the southwest corner below the rim we can see a small section of the South Kaibab trail, that's the route, one of two trails that take you all the way down to the Colorado River and the famous Phantom Ranch down at the bottom. We have a couple of cool geologic features right in front of us. We have Vishnu Temple, Wotans Throne is a chunk of the North Rim, a flat chunk that has broken off and tilting off into the Grand Canyon away from the rim. It's not uncommon to hear or maybe even see peregrine falcons flying by. And I've been out on Cape Royal here and once or twice and I've caught a very rare glimpse of a California condor flying overhead. So, let's go back to the parking lot and see if we can find this Wedding Site that was the source of your notebook.

Kamryn: So we're back at the trailhead in the big gravel parking lot and at the north end where kind of the closest part to where you drive in from there's some vault toilets there. And then if you go to the all the way opposite end of the parking lot, the farthest south end, you'll see two metal trash cans right there. There's no signs or anything else so just look for those trash cans at the far end of the parking lot and that is the way to the Wedding Site. So there's a picnic area it's only about 25 yards to the rim but you'll see some picnic tables there on your left and then on your right there's a small wooden sign that says Wedding Site with an arrow to the right with a little heart in it. It's very cute.

Doug: Very classy, I think.

Kamryn: And you'll follow that sign to the right there, another short walk and you'll come to the Wedding Site itself. So there's five or six wooden benches there and then this small rock right in the middle that serves as an altar.