Heidi & Derek’s Excellent Grand Canyon Bike Adventures

Hermit Road Bike Ride

From Grand Canyon Village there is a road called Hermit’s Road that cars aren’t allowed on. A free shuttle bus takes you to all the vistas along the road but we didn’t want to sit on a bus so we rode our bikes from Tusayan (a little tourist town) along a paved path to the park and then out Hermits Road to take in all the different viewpoints. The paved path is very nice and it parallels Highway 64 though you can never see or hear it really. It was about 7 miles to the visitors center and then we rode another 7 or so out Hermits Rest.

The viewpoints all have a slightly different angle of the giant canyon, some with better river views. Pima Point impressed me the most. We took the time to stop at them all and ooooh and ahhh at the expansive canyon. The clouds that day made for some very cool shadows on the canyon. After reaching the end, we turned around and came back.

Arizona Trail Mountain Biking

The Arizona National Scenic Trail runs 800 miles from Mexico to Utah. It’s non-motorized and incredibly diverse. We have ridden different sections in the past but this was our first time riding this particular section South of the Grand Canyon. From near where we camped we were able to hop on and ride a section. Tired from 3 days of hiking and then our ride the day before, we decided to just do 10 miles out and then turn around and come back.

This section of trail was fairly innocuous as it wound along a canyon through pine trees. I think the ride only had around 1500′ of climbing in total and it was nice to spend a couple hours riding in sun, and solitude on a Sunday. At one point we came to the Grandview Lookout Tower. It’s impressive. The steel tower is 80 feet tall and was built in the 1930’s.

Tomorrow it’s supposed to rain so it looks like a rest and recovery day is in store. I’ve been reading a lot of books, in fact I just finished the giant The Border by Don Winslow. It was my first “fiction” book in awhile. Before that I read The Brothers about the Boston Marathon Bombers, and Say Nothing about the Irish Republican Army. Heavy stuff!