On Friday the weather outlook called for rain later today, and the forecast doesn’t look good for the next three days 🙁

So much to see and do in and around Kanab, check out this website (←click here) that highlights three pages of attractions.

Here’s a brochure we got from the campground office:

We decided to start off by driving the Silverado over to the Grand Staircase-Escalante Visitors Center which is within eyesight of our campground.  This is the place that holds the lottery for a 6-mile hike to see “The Wave“.(← click here).

This is a picture of “The Wave” below: (photo courtesy of NationalParkTourz.com)

In order to hike “The Wave,’ you must have a permit.  The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) limits access to the North Coyote Buttes WIlderness Area to just twenty permits per day.  Ten of the permits are available in advance by an on-line lottery that is conducted four months before the month for which the permit is sought.  The remaining ten permits are made available by lottery the day before ones intended hike.  Year round the lottery is held at the ranger station on the east end of Kanab.  The lottery for the walk-in permits takes place at 9:00 in the morning. (ref: NationalParkTourz.com)

The lottery is held behind these doors (below), we were too late to try our luck.  I don’t think my hip replacement would like a 6-mile hike anyway 😐

Here’s a few more photos inside the visitors center:

We decided, that since rain is imminent for the next few days, that we would try our luck at visiting the Grand Canyon North Rim while the sun was still shining (off and on).  The other attractions that are nearer – or even in Kanab can wait until tomorrow or ?

So we put our little dog “Coach” into the Silverado and headed south to the North Rim (~80-90 miles one-way) to try and beat the rain.

Road sign (below) as we got closer to the North Rim.

We stopped at the North Rim Country Store to get some snacks because we heard the concessions at the North Rim were closed for the season and also, we forgot to pack lunch.

And finally we arrived at the park entrance.  It was 80° when we left Kanab and is now in the mid-to-low 40’s.

I was able to use my disabled veteran access pass to get free entry.

Some of the leaves haven’t fallen off the trees yet.

One of the nice campground host(s) back at the Hitch-N-Post in Kanab told us that most people only go straight to the lodge and miss out on a lot of scenery.  She recommended that once inside the park, we should take the road south to Cape Royal to see Angels Window.  So we followed the tip and drove ~15 miles to the viewpoints.

Cape Royal is the southernmost viewpoint on the North Rim, and it has the widest panorama of any Grand Canyon overlook – the great gorge occupies about 270° of the horizon, from Marble Canyon in the north, south over Palisades of the Desert, and westwards for many miles towards the main South Rim visitor area around Garden Creek. (ref: AmericanSouthwest.net)

Our first view of the Grand Canyon from the North Rim:

We finally reached the parking lot and took the path(s) to the Cape Royal Pt. and Angels WIndow viewpoints:

We chose the path on the right first to see Cape Royal Pt.  The sun was just starting to go behind some clouds…

Here you can see the clouds rolling in (below).

We walked back up the path after taking a lot of pictures and then went out on top of Angels Window for some more awesome views.

We drove back to the main road and went down to the main North Rim Visitor Center where the lodge is located.  It started raining on us 🙁

We toured the visitors center quickly… it was 15 minutes before closing time at 5 PM (Arizona time).

Whiteboard on the wall (below) at the Visitors Center with the weather outlook.

A shot of some of the cabins situated around the visitors center.

We didn’t go down to the lodge or any of the viewpoints here because it started raining heavily by now.  Here’s an information board in front of the visitors center regarding the lodge.

We plugged our campground into the GPS that I remembered to take out of the RV for our trip today and headed back to Kanab through the rain.  We ended up putting about 200 miles on the Silverado by the time we returned.

And that was our Friday… it’s still raining off and on this morning (Saturday) but the sun is trying to peek out.  Maybe we’ll try to visit the Animal Sanctuary and Little Hollywood today… stay tuned 🙂