Thanksgiving in the Desert: The North Rim

Tamanna and I decided to spend Thanksgiving with Grandpa and Grandma Green in Oro Valley, Arizona right outside of Tuscon.  We decided to leave the Saturday before Thanksgiving so that we could have some good days to camp out at the Grand Canyon.  We drove the whole day to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon only to be greeted with the snow.  We thought we were leaving the snow behind us in Utah by driving to Arizona a desert state, we were wrong.  We got in super late and it was snowing so we thought we would wake up to the sun and look at the North Rim.  In the morning we woke up @8am to a crazy snow storm with lots of wind and about a foot of snow: (this is where our tent was after we took it down quickly)

We decided that the fog was too thick to see anything and that we better try to head back out because there was about 45 minutes between us and the nearest town.  We thought we were all alone on the North Rim and we didn’t want to get snowed in, so we immediately tried to leave.  Tried is the keyword, we got about 5 minutes out before we got stuck ourselves in the new 12 inches of unplowed snow.  Tamanna and I tried for about 15 minutes to get the car unstuck before a park ranger came and informed us that the snow plow is coming and that we would have to move our car to let the plow pass.

With some help from the Ranger, Tamanna, and the plowman we were able to move the car so that the plow could continue plowing the way.  There were about 3 other cars that were behind the plow so we joined the line up and started down the road.  One the way we kept running into people that had gone off the road. 

Along the way we got to meet some climbers, a German who had 3 months holiday in the US, and a family from California.  We all had a great time pulling people out of the ditch and conversing while following the plow.  Then the plow went off the road and got really stuck, we had been helping cars and vans out of the snow but there was no way we could get the plow unstuck so we decided to drive back to the visitors center which was a heated building and waited for the plow to get unstuck.  Tamanna and I played cards and another couple just drank coffee trying to get warm.  We had only brought sweatshirts for cold weather gear thinking we were going to the desert.  We were freezing in the snow!  The storm did lift for about 10 minutes and we did get some good pictures of the North Rim:

The Grand Canyon was huge and beautiful.  The rock was beautiful looking and with the snow on it, it seemed so surreal that this huge canyon was made naturally.

This lift in the storm lasted for about 10 minutes then the wind brought in the clouds again and the storm was in full force once again.  We ended up not getting on the road for about another 4 hours.  The ranger then said that the road was clear and that we could get out if we wanted to.  So we started driving again.  We saw the sport where we got stuck, we drove past all the places where we helped everyone else get unstuck, we drove past the place where the plow was stuck and we thought we were doing good.  The snow was really coming down, it was white-out conditions and driving was getting difficult.  (not much of a ‘Forest’!!)

We were just following the red lights that we could see in front of us.  Then we found out the the road was not completely plowed and that the second plow that was supposed to get the job done had also broke down, and was waiting for a mechanic and parts.  So we decided to follow a mini-van and drive the rest of the way out of this road to a nearby truck-stop called Jacob Lake. That drive was the whitest drive I have ever made:

This is a Storm Snow as referred to by the German!!

we finally made it Jacob Lake by about 6pm to grab some dinner and get back on the road to have some daylight to drive in.  We had decided to drive to Flagstaff where we thought we could dry off in a cheap motel.  On the way we met up with a guy from southern France named Fred, who was on vacation by hitchhiking around the west coast and had decided to rent a car to drive to the grand canyon.  He had spent the day helping a hiker who had lost his keys in the snow while on a hike in the Grand Canyon the day before.  The keys were lost in the snow and he had given the hiker a ride to this truck stop to stay at the small motel that they had there.  Fred wanted to drive with us because it is safer to drive two cars together than tempting the elements by yourself so he followed us while we drove to Flagstaff.  We left the high altitude pretty quickly and soon we were driving in clear black skies with stars and had left the ‘Storm Snow’ behind us.  Along the drive we stopped and took some cool shots and views of the rocks and the Colorado River at Nighttime:

That night after driving for quite awhile Fred decided he wanted to camp on the South Rim and we wanted to go to Flagstaff so we parted ways and drove to Flagstaff.  The journey continued in the morning but that is another post.