No, this isn’t my official trip report from Grand Canyon North Rim, just one of those “occasional random thoughts” I promised my readership (all 3 of you! ha ha ha). Well, it does have to do with our trip to the North Rim, and it does have to do with YOUR upcoming trip to the Grand Canyon, no matter which side you see it from. And it’s a little “note to self” as I put together our upcoming Grand Canyon Winter Travel Guide.
Have you ever really seen the night? Do you have an accurate sense of how dependent we have become on our artificial light, or how dark it truly gets when the sun goes down? When you come to the Grand Canyon, you’ll see.
Here’s what you do: find that map somewhere on the internet, it made the rounds on peoples’ e-mails awhile back. It shows the US and depicts how brightly the country is illuminated at night. As you’d expect, around New York, LA, Seattle, etc., you see a lot of big white spots, indicating your big populatoin centers; throughout a majority of the country, it’s consistently mottled with smaller white spots, telling us that these areas are populated, too, though not as densely.
Then you get to the Southwest, there’s this big dark spot. There’s a few little specks of light here and there, in places like Flagstaff, Salt Lake City, Las Vegas, Phoenix, etc. But everywhere else, it’s a big black hole. What does that tell us? That a. a goodly part of the Southwest is almost devoid of people and b. it’s not too brightly lit at night.
When you come to the Grand Canyon, you’ll believe it. We sure did when we were walking from the Grand Canyon Lodge dining room to the back end of the parking lot at 9:00 at night. As a general rule, your National Parks are not going to have a lot of outdoor lighting.
Remember, the purpose of preserving these places is to keep them as natural as possible, and that means, not lit up like a birthday cake at night. So walking from, say, the Arizona Room to Maswik Lodge, though an easy 1/2 mile walk, is suddenly a scary proposition when it’s pitch black out.
So – note to self for the Grand Canyon winter travel guide: tell the folks to bring a flashlight. Either that or buy one when you get out here. Y’know what little gizmos are cool – those headlamps that come on an elastic headband. A river captain lent me his for my 8-day Grand Canyon rafting trip with Wilderness River Adventures, and what a life-saver!
Should you be scared about this? Not at all – be excited. ’Cause I’ll betcha that when you come to Arizona, the night sky will never look the same. You’ll feel as though you’ve seen truly seen the stars for the first time. And if you happen to come during a full moon? Fuggeddabouddit! You might never want to leave. At least that’s what happened to me, and here I am. Pretty cool, huh?
L8R – Alley Kaye 
P.S. Want an advance copy of the Winter Travel Guide? Drop me a line at alleyk@grandcanyon.com
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September 28th, 2006 at 1:51 pm
[...] Due to the wait for the meal, and seeing as though we had our goodies before dinner, we opt to skip dessert and head on back to Page, America. Heading back to the car from the lodge, my memory is refreshed about how dark it gets up here. There isn’t much in the way of artificial lighting up here, and you’ll find that to be the case in most of your National Parks. So I was kicking myself for not bringing along a small flashlight ‘cause Sandy J., whose vehicle I was heading home in, was parked aaaaaaaallll the way at the back of the parking lot! [...]