Most people who visit the Grand Canyon visit the South Rim. They typically come from the south, Williams or Flagstaff, and enter the park at Grand Canyon Village. Problem is, the Village is a zoo. It’s crowded. Traffic is Terrible. People do their best to maximize obnoxiousness. I avoid it.

We visited from the East Entrance, near Tuba City on the Navajo Reservation. It’s far less crowded than the South Entrance and a lot more pleasant. There is a 25 mile road from the East Entrance to the Village. It has great view and lots of turnouts. We took the road to the Visitor Center near the Village. It’s a good place to turn around, and during high season you’ll see plenty of crazy. We saw people run stop signs and drive where there was no road. We got out of there as quickly as we could.

Lots of national parks have crowding problems. Some require reservations, but that doesn’t seem like a great solution. It will still be crowded, maybe not as crowded as otherwise, but crowded all the same. The economist in me says raise the price, but these are national assets. They are there for all Americans.

A huge number of the visitors are not Americans. Charging them, though, wouldn’t reduce crowding. They are already spending a lot of money just to get here. An entrance fee would be relatively insignificant.

I don’t have a solution, except avoid peak seasons and the most crowded places.

As is almost always the case, sunset and sunrise are the best times to be there for photography. We were there a bit after sunrise, but we stayed until sunset. I think a more talented photographer could make impressive midday picture. I took a few, and they are OK.

The nice thing about early and late photography is that there are fewer people. That means fewer problems of other photographers barging in on your spot or people walking into your picture. Then, there are the phone people. That’s a topic for another post.

The sky was less than I would have hoped for, but that’s what you get when you are on the move.

We spent two nights in Tuba City. One of those nights was in the NavajoLand Hotel and one in their campground. Tuba City is on the western edge of the Navajo Reservation that occupies a large part of northeast Arizona. It’s huge.

On the reservation, we ate Navajo food. I had been looking forward to Navajo Tacos and was not disappointed.

Navajo food is all about the bread. It’s a fry bread made with flour, baking soda, and water cooked in oil. It can be sweetened for breakfast or wrapped around just about anything. Joyce had Navajo Beef Wrap our first night there.

There’s a bit of controversy about the name. In the early days, reservation residents were give flour (probably mealy) and lard (probably rancid). With those as your resources, there’s not a lot else you can do. Seems this type of bread was a staple for many reservations.

Alcohol is strictly forbidden on the reservation. Don’t be an ugly tourist and ask about margaritas, like I did.

We left Tuba City for the Grand Canyon’s North Rim, but we weren’t done with the reservation. After the North Rim, we went to Chinle to see the Canyon de Chilly. That’s another post.

Tuba City and the Grand Canyon’s South Rim

North Rim Grand Canyon

Bandelier and Valles Caldera