Bright Angel Point
Bright Angel Point, North Rim, Grand Canyon National Park
The drive to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon from Las Vegas seems interminable. But your reward for patience is the breathtaking vistas encompassing both scenery and time.
The scenery is magnificent. From the North Rim, you can clearly see the South Rim ten miles away. And in between, the Grand Canyon seems to cascade endlessly over layers and layers of multicolored rocks to the emerald waters of the Colorado River far below.
An unimaginable display of earth’s timeline is also on display. In the barely visible depths of the canyon, the rocks are 1.7 billion years old. As you gain altitude, the multicolored rock layers become younger and younger.
These layers record the rise and fall of oceans and continents, and the evolution of plants and animals. There are fossils of trilobites (the first creatures with eyes}, giant dragonflies, and the wanderings of reptiles on ancient sand dunes.
The ten-mile gap between the Rims is the result of erosion from the Colorado River, floods, freezing, thawing, heating, cooling, and gravity. Over the past five million years, nature has carved a one-mile-deep canyon.
Tourism and the Lodge
The name “Bright Angel” originally comes from Major John Wesley Powell. The famous one-armed Civil War veteran explored the canyon by boat in 1869. He bestowed the name upon a sparkling creek that flowed into the Colorado River. Today, it applies to both natural and constructed features on both rims and within the canyon.
Bright Angel Point is a scenic viewpoint about 4,000 feet above Powell’s creek. Primitive tourism began around the Point at the turn of the 20th Century.
A rough road first reached Bright Angel Point in 1917. Originally Forest Service property, it became a national park in 1919. The National Park Service decided to mimic the South Rim model with a chalet, a road along the rim, and connecting trails to other points along the North Rim.
Gilbert Underwood designed the first North Rim lodge in 1928 for then-concessionaire Union Pacific Railroad. It included a massive Spanish-style exterior with a high front topped by an observation tower. It burned down just four years later in 1932.
The “new” 1937 lodge now sits on its footprint.
The “new” lodge
Camera Club Buddies
I’m a member of Naperville’s Photogenesis camera club. In February, one of the members began organizing a trip to the North Rim. When I was asked to join, I didn’t think twice before joining!
John Tarsha, Allan Fisher, Steve Horne, and me at Bright Angel Point
The Shot
July 25 was a long day. John and I left for O’Hare around 6:30 am. After arriving in Las Vegas, we met Allan and drove to St. George, Utah to meet Steve. It was about 4 pm when we finally arrived at the North Rim lodge.
Everyone rushed out on the balcony to photograph a monsoon storm over the canyon. That evening, we took the quarter mile hike from the lodge to Bright Angel Point to enjoy the sunset. This is my favorite photo from that evening, taken just after sunset.
After a late dinner, we headed out to photograph the Milky Way until 2:30 am. But that’s another story…
Thanks for looking,
Chuck Derus