Yesterday our good friends Kathy and Shane took Barbara and I to the Toroweap overlook on the north rim of the Grand Canyon. This is not and easy vantage point to get to. There are only three roads you can take to get there and all of them are unpaved and require four wheel drive the last 2.7 miles. The road we took is 61 miles one way. We weren’t disappointed. The vistas are amazing. I have wanted to visit this place ever since my first river trip in 2010. From the Toroweap overlook you can look straight down on the Colorado River below and see Lava Falls, just to the west, the largest rapids in north America. I am blessed to be able to say I have been able to traverse these, adrenaline rush rapids twice, both times successfully.
On our way to Toroweap we saw a badger, approximately 30 Quail, mostly babies, a red tail hawk and a fast moving coyote. The badger turned and appear to want to charge our vehicle, but thought better of it and ran off. We also rescued a hiker and his dog who got turned around and were heading away from where they wanted to go. We also saw some amazing geology. At Toroweap you can see the volcanic field that created Lava Falls. Before Lava Falls was created lava flowed into the river channel, damming the Colorado River and backing the water up hundreds of miles to the town of Moab, Utah. But as the water backed up behind this lava dam it eventually over topped it and created what is known today as Lava Falls. This process repeated itself several times until the lava ceased flowing into the river channel. You can still see remnants of these lava dams. Lava Falls is the only rapid in the Grand Canyon that wasn’t created by debris flows aka landslides.
The trip was an amazing adventure that I believe all of us enjoyed, even our wiener dog Toby.
RV There Yet? 