Grand Canyon
No natural wonder could live up to expectations more than
Grand Canyon. I have had the privilege of traveling there many
times over the last 20 years, although I have never yet made the
trip down to the River. One day! My daughter learnt her first
word - Hi! - at the Grand Canyon village and I have visited many
of the more remote scenic overlooks that are so populous in
Summer, but deserted in Winter.
Most memorable of all was a trip to the deserted North Rim Lodge
before dawn one November morning to watch the dark and starry sky
lighten with the approaching dawn, casting fantastic shadows
across the canyon floor in total silence. And I was not quite
alone, 65 miles from the highway and eons from civilisation in
time and space.
Driving back across the broad alpine meadows that straddle the
North Rim Road, a lone wolf stood in my path. Desperately I
fumbled the controls of my camera. The proud wolf eyed me up,
turned and nonchalantly strolled away. As I desperately tried to
re-start the camera, which I had switched off instead of on, he
faded into the tree line and disappeared. But he was there -
really.
Edited 2004 to say that the chart shown here is out of date now. The boundaries of the SFRA have been extended to cover the Little Colorado river, making the flight described in Little Colorado unrepeatable. That's progress, I suppose...)
This is a 'clickable' map. Just click along the route to see some images along the way. (Click 'Back' to return to the map.)
(You can also see Marble Canyon, at the North end of the Canyon, where flights below the rim are permitted)
The grand canyon airport is about 80 miles North of Prescott, an easy 1 Hour hop for a 152 across the most fantastic landscapes on Earth.
I have flown to the canyon from Las Vegas several times, but
always turned back before the Grand Canyon airport because of the
frantic sight seeing traffic that makes Grand Canyon (GCN) one of
the busiest general aviation airports in the world. However,
today is Thanksgiving Thursday, and I have found on a previous
trip up here that local pilots prefer turkey to flying on this
special day.
This morning, only the dedicated controllers are working and on
my flight from Prescott to the canyon I have not seen or hears
another aircraft. So today, I will fly the Canyon! In a 152! I
land at GCN for fuel. Full tanks are a good plan in Canyon
country, although that would be a different story on a hot
summers day with two on board. Like the controllers, the FBO is
working and I am soon ready for departure again. GCN's runway is
9000' long, and at an elevation of 6606', they need it.
One of the first things they hammer into your head at North Las
Vegas airport when you check out to fly in this terrain is
Density Altitude, a term so little known in England that when I
first bought my Garmin GPS, the technical man at Garmin UK had
never even heard of it, much less explain why it didn't work. (It
does now, following my complaint!)
On this cool November day, there is nothing unusual about the
little Cessna's ground roll, probably using not more than 1500'
of the available runway. But be warned: the temperature here can
get to 100F and my Garmin says that equates to more than 10,000'.
How well does your 4 seater climb up there? And that's after
you've avoided the tour traffic (It says in the book that if you
hear traffic stacking over the holding points, go somewhere
else).
But not on this Thanksgiving morning. I am the traffic at GCN
today, with nothing but the vista of the world's greatest
landmark for company. As I climb, the tower offers me a frequency
for flight following, which I decline (afterwards, I wonder if
they were trying to tell me something). Flight following is a
radar service available to VFR pilots and I understand that they
will even steer you around the canyon's landmarks if you ask. Yes
there is radar coverage up here and the transponder is blinking
at intervals. But today is strictly own navigation.
The canyon itself is governed by very strict aviation rules to
minimise noise impact on the wilderness below and no flights are
allowed below 14,500' over large parts of the area. However,
there are VFR corridors crossing the canyon N-S in the GCN area
and it is these that I plan to fly. The Dragon corridor will lead
me NE across the canyon to the West of the Bright Angel trail,
which the central no-fly corridor is designed to protect. Then I
will cross to the East, joining the Zuni Point corridor
Southbound en route for my return to Prescott.
There are also low level tour routes snaking between landmarks in
a constant series of tight turns, requiring total familiarity
with every part of the terrain. It seems you need a special
permit for this, and there's no way you could stick to the
designated tracks without being trained over the routes. Even
then, no flight is allowed below 2000' above the canyon rim, so
the days of flying down to the river are long gone. To cross the
Canyon northbound, you need to get to 11,500'.
Yes, 11,500' in a 152. I make lazy orbits SW of the airport,
taking about 20min to get up there. As I approach the south end
of the Dragon corridor, I announce my intention to cross on the
advisory frequency. An astonished voice comes back "What? In
a 152? How long did it take you to get up there?" I tell
him, pleased to have an admirer (actually, he thinks that I'm
mad, of course).
Still 15mi South of the rim, the vast splendour of the canyon
at it's widest point opens before me. 25 miles across and a mile
deep, this chasm rivals the English channel as an obstacle to
travel. The distant North rim is 1000' higher than the South,
much colder and at this time of year, completely deserted. Apart
from the Wolves.
I cross the rim, more than a mile above. there is no sensation
of falling over the cliff at this level - just the widening vista
as the grand staircase of geologic time falls away, one step at a
time. Countless millions of years of deposition lie exposed here,
the grains of ancient sandstone and the tiny shells of long dead
sea animals forming layers of rock hundreds of feet thick.
Every band in these rocks is a layer of deposition, anywhere from
a few thousand to a million years of time, sediments laid down in
a world quite different to our own. Looking at the flat land of
the Colorado plateau, it is striking to reflect on the thousands
of feet of sediment that once laid above this land,
and is now eroded away as though it had never been.
Right at the edge of the rim here, the limestone sediment is the
bed of an ancient sea. These were Jurassic times, and Dinosaurs
ruled the land. Huge Pterosaurs, some as big as this 152, lived
not far from here. Imagine an airmiss with one of those!
Between the limestone layers are episodes of red sandstone,
laid down when this land was a barren red desert. Imagine the sea
of time, flowing from one era to the next, sometimes a warm
tropical sea, sometimes a hostile desert... But no need to
imagine: It is all here, laid out before your very own eyes, in
this Grand Canyon.
Setting out across this colossal abyss feels exactly like
setting out across a cold and hostile ocean, or at least in my
experience the very cold and unwelcoming Irish sea. Soon I am far
from gliding range of the rim, and searching for rocks that look
flat enough if an emergency arose. There aren't any.
I know that the Bright Angel trail crosses flat terraces on
it's long and winding way down to the river, and resolve that I
would try for one of those if the need occurred. I suppose I
could get down somewhere...
And now, here is the river. The great Colorado, power and life
to Southwest, winds through tiny canyons far below. Of course,
the 'tiny canyons' are vast gorges in their own right, but are
simply swallowed up by the grandeur of the landscape. Down in the
inner gorge are some of the oldest rocks exposed anywhere on
Earth, 2 thousand million years old, half way back to the birth
of the Solar System.
Up here, two miles above the river, none of the power and
glory of this scene is lost on the pilot of a tiny 152. But more
pressing matters are at hand: "Fly the aeroplane" rings
through the mind. The Dragon corridor here is only a few miles
wide, and wandering off track here might mean big trouble with
the park Rangers.
Happily the magnificent sectional charts supplied by the FAA
contain every detail needed to explore this wilderness, including
on some charts photographs of prominent landmarks at the ends of
the VFR corridors. I use these landmarks for my primary
navigation, with the trusty GPS already programmed with each
corridor co-ordinates as back up against mis-reading the
unfamiliar terrain.
Back in 1991 the FAA published 'VFR Pilots briefing pamphlet' describing the special rules are that surrounds the canyon and details of the corridors and 'no fly zones'. This part of the U.S. looks more like northern Iraq than Arizona! I don't know if the pamphlet is still available, but I'd recommend it to any intrepid aviators entering this territory.
It takes 20 minutes to fly across the canyon in the Dragon corridor, 20 glorious minutes of maintaining heading, speed and altitude while trying to absorb the entire geologic history of the world in one continuous vision. Nowhere else could one hope to see so much of the Earth, from high above and yet feeling as though immersed in the scenery all around.
Soon, we are crossing over the North Rim, noticeably closer to
the aeroplane because of the higher AGL. I continue inland to my
turning point, calculated to avoid the restricted airspace
surrounding the North Rim Lodge. The terrain here is heavily
forested, on contrast to the open prairie of the South rim
plateau.
Now, I turn East. Away to my left is the North Rim Road, punctuated by the same Alpine meadows, in one of which I met my lone Wolf
Now, I turn onto an Easterly heading to intercept the Northern
entry to the Southbound Zuni Point corridor. I begin a gradual
descent to 10,500' , the crossing level southbound
Soon, the North Canyon comes into view . Here the Canyon makes a 90 degree turn, heading up to Page, Airizona and Lake Powell.. We will cross the North canyon to the point where the little Colorado river enters the main confluence, and then turn South to cross the Zuni Point corridor. From there, it is straight run home to Prescott.
Perhaps 100 miles to the North towers the monolithic bulk of Navajo mountain.
In the foreground, the chasm of the North Canyon opens up. Of to the left of the aeroplane, fantastic folds give evidence to how this plateau was forced up two miles into the sky by the colossal forces of tectonic plate movement, the lighter continental plate floating upwards over the subducted oceanic Pacific plate below.
And so to home. I turn south over the canyon's Eastern wall, entering the Zuni Point corridor and 40 miles of the Colorado river to Desert View, where I leave the SFRA and set course for home.
The canyon of the Little Colorado river winds westward from
Cameron, Arizona to join the Grand Canyon at Cape Solitude. As I
prepare to turn on to South, smoke from forest fires burning on
the North Rim give an illusion of mist in the late afternoon sun.
I track South past Temple Butte along the river, entering the
Zuni corridor.
The run back to Prescott across the vast Colorado plateau
takes me overhead Bill Williams Mountain.
The controller at Prescott, said to be the 7th busiest in the US
in terms of aircraft movements, seems pleased to hear from me and
scans the desert sky while I am still many miles away. (no radar
at Prescott!). Finally he sees me and grants that unique honour
at Prescott (for VFR traffic, anyway) of a straight in approach.
It is an inestimable privilege to be allowed to fly freely in the
skies of this fantastic country and now, with the free run of
Prescott's normally teeming airport, the feeling of being the
only flier in this whole continent is complete.