Pick up a self-guiding pamphlet from the box by the log shelter near the parking lot. Follow one of the paved trails to Bright Angel Point, which divides a side canyon called The Transept from Roaring Springs Canyon. Listen for the sound of the springs cascading from a cave 3,000 feet [914.4 meters] below the rim. This is a fine spot for watching sunrise or sunset. Those needing to stretch legs can take the Transept Trail, 1.5 miles [2.4 kilometers] along the nearly level rim, or a short hike on the North Kaibab Trail (1 mile [1.6 kilometers] down takes you 650 feet [198.1 meters] beneath the rim—and that mile back up feels like 3). From the lodge, drive north 3 miles [4.8 kilometers] to the Cape Royal Road, one of the most scenic drives in the park. It passes through forests of spruce, locust, and ponderosa pine mixed with stands of quaking aspen, and through lovely meadows of blue lupine and scarlet bugler. Long-eared mule deer often bound across the road, and you might glimpse the reclusive white-tailed Kaibab squirrel found only in the North Rim forests on the Kaibab Plateau.
Those looking for a dramatic sunrise perch can turn off onto the 3-mile [4.8-kilometer] road to Point Imperial, at 8,803 feet [2,683.2 meters] the highest viewpoint on either rim. Here amid tall evergreens you look across the canyon to the high plateau of the Navajo Indian Reservation. Return to the main road and continue on, passing through the forested Walhalla Plateau. Stop at Vista Encantadora for superb views of the northeastern canyon and the carved pinnacles of Brady and Tritle Peaks.
The road ends at a parking lot on Cape Royal. A paved 0.5-mile [0.8-kilometer] nature trail leads along a narrow peninsula past Angel’s Window, an opening eroded through the rock spur that frames the river below. Watch your children. From the overlook Wotans Throne a nd Vishnu Temple dominate the foreground. Across the canyon rise the Palisades of the Desert. The unusually broad vista provides a fine vantage point to watch the sun set and to absorb what naturalist John Burroughs described as Grand Canyon’s “strange new beauty.”
