Grand Canyon West & Hoover Dam

The grandest place I saw on this trip. And a big tick of my must-do list. The Grand Canyon was beautiful!

The Grand Canyon National Park is located in Arizona and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Because it's such a huge national park with many entrances, we only covered the West Rim, also known as the Hualapai Reservation, where the infamous (but I feel is thoroughly over-rated and definitely over-priced) Grand Canyon Skywalk is located.

We left Vegas at 8am after a super huge buffet breakfast at the Monte Carlo Hotel (can you imagine, steak for breakfast?). We drove first to Hoover Dam, about 45 minutes drive from Vegas.

Hoover Dam is apparently "one of the greatest engineering works in history". Wikipedia says that "there is enough concrete in the dam to pave a 2-lane highway from San Francisco to New York" and that's saying something, because that's a minimum 5-hour flight one-way!

A result of the Hoover Dam is the very tranquil Lake Mead, blue and nice. Hoover Dam is located at the border of Nevada (Vegas) and Arizona. So there are 2 clocks on the bridge there, depicting a time difference of one hour for Nevada-time and Arizona-time.

We only drove across the Dam, didn't get down to tour it properly. Probably because it costs quite a bit - $8 for Visitor Center admission, $30 for a Dam tour, and $11 for a power plant tour. KF was a bit frustrated because we didn't get to stop properly at the Dam, and instead we rushed off to Grand Canyon.

The drive from the Dam to Grand Canyon West Airport (the visitor welcome center to Grand Canyon West) took more than 2 hours, also because we got held up due to roadworks. From the Airport, we had to take an internal bus (because private buses are not allowed in the park) to bumpity-bump our way in to the Skywalk, which took another hour of rough bus ride (about 21 miles of unpaved road), past many joshua trees - which are apparently unique to the park.

The tour guide says that the West Rim is more "natural" and less commercialised compared to other parts of the Grand Canyon. And it appears to be true. There are no bars to stop you from falling off the many cliffs into the bottom far far below.

First, we arrived at Eagle Point, home to the Grand Canyon Skywalk and a Native American Village. We dropped everything we had including cellphones and cameras into lockers, passed a metal detector, put on some kind of "shoe cover" on our shoes and entered the Skywalk.

The Skywalk looks bigger in pictures and truthfully, is not much of an experience. It was opened in 2007, is made of glass, apparently many strong thick layers, a horse-shoe shape and is 3 times higher / taller than the KLCC Twin Towers (4,000 feet above the Colorado River). You get to look down to the canyon far far below (but I wasn't scared, so I think it'll be okay even for people scared of heights). Some people were taking "official" photographs (these photos can only be taken by their people, you can't take your own, and you have to buy them for $100 when you get off the bridge). We didn't take any - refusing to be water fish - I mean, come on, $100 for photos on the not-too-impressive Skywalk?

We hurried off the Skywalk, past the souvenir shop (which unfortunately had not-very-nice fridge magnets so I didn't get any), and went out into the open to take our own amazing photos at those unmarked and unenclosed cliff borders.

At one corner in the amphitheatre, there was a Native American performance as well, by a Red Indian's wife who sings enchantingly - apparently an award winner in the Native American-equivalent of the Grammys. I liked this part of the trip, because it provided glimpses into Native American culture, and culture's not something we get much of during a tour to the U.S. because after all, American culture has been invading every part of the world through our tvs and radios that it's no longer considered "culture", if you know what I'm rambling on about. So, I soaked up whatever little bit of "real" culture I could get.

From Eagle Point, we took another shuttle bus that ferried us to Guano Point, where we had cafeteria-style Hualapai buffet food overlooking the Grand Canyon and Colorado River. This was a pretty great experience, because the view here was even better than that at the Skywalk. And it was refreshing to eat out in the open and not be cooped up in some stuffy restaurant. We gobbled our food and hiked around taking more pictures, always taking care not to step on any loose rock at the edge of the cliff :P Too bad time passed so fast, as we then had to shuttle it back to the Skywalk area to take another bumpity-bump shuttle back to the Airport area and board our own bus back to Vegas.

Cost (which was included in our tour, but for those who'd like to know) :

• Legacy Package (this is the basic package that all visitors must purchase which includes entrance to all Grand Canyon West attractions and free hop-on-off shuttle bus between points) : $29.95 + 7% tax + $8 impact fee + $3 fuel charge
• Skywalk tour : $29.95 per person (no personal cameras allowed)
• Meal options : $11.95 per person (not allowed to bring your own food into the park)
• If you drive your own vehicle, there are further charges incurred.

Apparently the entire Grand Canyon West belongs to the Hualapai tribe. This area is solely built and developed by this tribe, and represents the dreams and future incomes for the survival of this tribe - which is why we see many tribal people running the facilities around the park. The Hualapai tribe's sole source of income is through tourism, which may explain the exorbitant fees charged. However, some articles say that even so, the Hualapai are not earning much from the Grand Canyon West, which annually hosts about 200,000 visitors.

I loved the Grand Canyon. It was majestic and raw and completely awesome. If I have the chance, I'd go there again. And next time, maybe take a helicopter tour between the canyon and a boat ride on the Colorado River.

There are a million other photos we took (KF took quite a lot of amazing pics - and yes Nat, got my face in it wan). Wait patiently for them la yah.