Boy, the times they are a-changing. What am I going on about today? Well…for those of you planning visits to the Grand Canyon here in the near future, a friendly heads up: you’re going to 
hear a couple of expressions bandied about as you plan your vacation. You may be tempted to think they refer to the same place, and that’s not always going to be the case. These are “Grand Canyon West” and “the West Rim.”
Back in the late 1980’s when I first arrived at the Grand Canyon, whenever you said “the west rim,” you were talking about the two-lane road just off Grand Canyon Village on the South Rim. Like its name suggests, this road extends for 8 miles in a westerly direction from the Village to various (and stunning) overlooks of the Grand Canyon. One such very famous viewpoint that this road goes to is Hopi Point, which is popular with visitors hoping to catch that ultimately mind-blowing Grand Canyon sunset. My personal favorite is the Abyss – you really see the depth of the gorge from there in a very in-your-face way, IMHO. At the end of the road is a place called Hermit’s Rest, a really neat old building which houses a gift shop and snack bar. Like many other buildings in the park, Hermit’s Rest was designed by Mary Jane Elizabeth Colter. More on her later – but anyway, because of that, the West Rim Drive is also referred to by some locals as the “Hermit Road.”
The West Rim Drive/Hermit Road was built (correct me if I’m wrong people!) a bit after the turn of the 20th century, back in the day (BITD) when not many cars actually made it up to the Grand Canyon. Of course, the ensuing decades brought more and more cars, eventually necessitating the closure of the West Rim drive to private vehicles during the lazy hazy crazy days of summer…and eventually that closure would extending from late spring through early winter. Now, the National Park Service provides an easy-to-use free shuttle to those viewpoints during that time, and the in-park concessionaire, Xanterra South Rim LLC provides a guided bus tour to that area year-round.
In the late-1990’s, another phrase began to circulate around: ”Grand Canyon West.” Now, I had actually flown over that area many times back in the 1980’s. Then, what would later become Grand Canyon West was a little airstrip on the Hualapai Indian Reservation almost smack dead center between Las Vegas and the South Rim (as the crow flies). Back then, there was a whole lot of NOTHING out there. Not so anymore.
Today, Grand Canyon West is a developing visitor service complex manned by members of the Hualapai Indian Tribe. It has an airport, cafe, gift shop, tour desk, and several helipads that they lease to various Grand Canyon helicopter tour operators. Those helicopters take people down to the bottom of the Grand Canyon for short pontoon boat trips or just for a look-see. They’ve also built an Indian Village and some stables for horseback trips.
Grand Canyon West also has a work in progress that a lot of folks are excited about, the Grand Canyon Skywalk, a horseshoe shaped glass bridge that will stick out past the canyon rim about 70 feet. This walkway will be cantilevered, which means no struts or support beams will be visible to whoever’s standing on it – just hundreds of feet of air between them and the Colorado River below! It was supposed to open this year, but construction delays and design revisions have pushed that day back to January of 2007.
Are the views of the Grand Canyon different between the two places? Very. The South Rim is at 7,000′; Grand Canyon West is at about 4,000′. The views of the Grand Canyon from the South Rim are more vast, sweeping and panoramic than those at Grand Canyon West. The rock formations on the South Rim also run the full spectrum of color (from red to purple and just about everything in between) whereas Grand Canyon West is more muted and earth-toned. The South Rim is covered by a thick pine forest; Grand Canyon West is more of a true desert landscape (which means it’s hotter than a pistol in summertime).
The Colorado River is more easily seen from Grand Canyon West by virtue of it being lower in altitude. Grand Canyon West’s views are more stark and vertical, and mostly devoid of guardrails, too, prompting some visitors to crawl to the edge on all fours to take a picture. Grand Canyon West is also a much smaller area than the South Rim, so there’s less of it to see. And the main access road out there is still unpaved, so you’ll want to think twice before driving your rented Ford Focus out there. Talk to us instead about a Las Vegas Grand Canyon tour package.
At Grand Canyon South Rim, you have 6 hotels inside the park (managed by Xanterra), and 5 more just outside the park in Tusayan. At Grand Canyon West, there aren’t as quite as many hotels at the moment, and most will be located outside the immediate area. The Grand Canyon West Ranch is an actual working ranch located near the Grand Canyon West airport. There are also a few small motels in the nearby communities of Peach Springs (Hualapai Lodge, the Grand Canyon Caverns Inn), and Truxton (the Frontier Motel). The old Route 66 goes through Peach Springs, too – very cool.
In summary, the South Rim (home of “the West Rim”) and Grand Canyon West are very different places. A couple of things they do have in common are that they are open year-round, and both places can be visited with an air-ground day excursion from Las Vegas or Phoenix. In the process of planning your Grand Canyon vacation, you may hear Grand Canyon West referred to as “the West Rim.” But that phrase was actually used to denote the West Rim Drive of Grand Canyon South Rim long before Grand Canyon West came to be. I guess old habits die hard! After all, most of us at GrandCanyon.com have lived in the area for 20 years, some were even born and raised here.
The terminology is a potential source of confusion if you’re unfamiliar with the area. If you’re not sure which place is being discussed, please ask. A phrase you’ll want to add to your vocabulary as you plan your vacation: when in doubt, check it out. But in general, when we (GrandCanyon.com) talk about ”the West Rim,” we too will be referring to the West Rim Drive on the South Rim. When we talk about the area over on the Hualapai Reservation, we call it “Grand Canyon West.”
Which one should you choose? …. We’ll talk about that on another post. 
As usual, I’ve rambled on too long! Not hard to do about my favorite subject.
L8R – Alley Kaye
P.S. Hey, speaking of the West Rim Drive/Hermit Road, the National Park Service will reopen it to private vehicles on December 1st. One thing that will be different this year is that Yaki Point and the South Kaibab Trailhead parking lots will remain closed through the winter (they used to reopen those too). Free shuttle access will continue throughout the winter to those areas. Overnight hikers will be allowed to park there by permit only. The Grand Canyon Village shuttle will also continue running year-round. For more information on Grand Canyon shuttles (and lots of other stuff too!), visit http://www.nps.gov/grca
was BITD when people paid for their hotel reservations by check… y’know… paper? This wall had envelopes addressed to “Grand Rapids, Michigan,” “Grand Falls, Iowa,” and even “Keystone, SD.” It couldn’t figure out how that one came about, but someone kindly explained it to me: someone thought the Grand Canyon was in the neighborhood of Mt. Rushmore! 
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