Having come all the way from Australia and wanting to experience the Grand Canyon without the hoards that are prevalent at the South Rim, we decided to stay out at the Grand Canyon Lodge on the lesser travelled, and less populated, North Rim. The Lodge itself was built in 1928 and is quite an impressive stone and timber building. The cabins are picturesquely set among the Ponderosa pine forest all along the edge of the rim, some 400 in all I think, accommodation well over 1000 visitors. They have a formal dining room/restaurant, a Saloon Bar, a canteen/deli, a gift shop/bookstore and the National Park Visitors Centre all on site. There are also some very well located terraces from which you can enjoy the grandeur of the Canyon and enjoy the sunsets with cocktail or a sunrise with an early morning cuppa. On paper, the place looks great.
However, when we arrived, we found that you can’t park your vehicle anywhere near you cabins, so you have to park in an allocated space – of which there are THREE – for no more then 15 minutes as you lug your baggage up and down the hill to your cabin. We were also warned off that we might find ourselves with a $150 ticket if we overstayed our 15 mins, or accidentally parked in the very faded painted ‘yellow zone’. Nice, welcome to the Grand Canyon North Rim Lodge.
The next thing I asked was whether they could help out a chronic pain sufferer and help me find a microwave that I could put my heat pack in for a couple of minute… I mean seriously, we had driven 5 hrs in Alaska, taken two flights and 5 more hours to get there and about 30 hours in transit so when I was asking, I was literally shaking and tears weren’t far away… they said they didn’t think so, but they’d look into it and call me down in the cabin to let me know where I could take it. Well, no surprise. They didn’t fucking call and I just chowed down on some extra drugs and hoped for the best.
Next we find out that our rooms have a coffee maker but no jug, and this means, no way of boiling water that doesn’t taste like coffee. Unfortunately this seems to be a bit of a running theme in most of the accommodations we have stayed in, but bloody hell, this crap is really starting to piss me off – if you’re a tea drinker, you’re just shit out of luck, and most of the time they are not interested in finding a jug for you.
But the best was yet to come. We settle into our cabin, have a wander out to admire the first sunset on the terrace and marvel at our beautiful surrounds. After that we come back for a quick salad dinner and decide that crashing early would be highly desirable given our long transit. It was at this point that we discovered the walls of our cabin made out of logs about 40cm in diameter, were fucking paper thin! The neighbours came in after their dinner and made a helluva racket and we could hear every single word of their conversations, hell, we probably could have easily joined their conversations if we had wanted to! Grrr… decide on an extra Valium approach for the evening.
The paper thin walls become a constant irritation. I hear the neighbours chucking stuff around and talking excitedly at about 7am but am so drug fucked I can’t say or do anything. Then laying there kinda munted I later hear someone playing pop music next door and think… what on earth dow they think they are doing? A little bit later, I hear the snap of sheets and realize the pop music is coming, not from our neighbours, but from the fucking housekeeping staff who is making up the room for the next occupants!! Oh FFS. I get dressed and march around to the other end of the duplex cabin building… “Do you work here?”… “Yes.” … “You just woke us up with your fucking shit taste in music and complete inability to sing.” Storm off indignantly. After a 30 hour transit, we really needed to catch up but so didn’t happen. :S
The final straw thing wall episode occurred when our new neighbours checked in that afternoon… they had been on the road for over six hours to arrive there and they were in a very familiar frame of mind. One wanted to go check everything out, the other wanted to rest, the first claims if they rest then, that’s it, they’ll be down for the count and an argument ensues.
Arghhh… so much for the peace and quiet away from all the tourist traps and crowds that are prevalent on the South Rim.
Other than all that, the dining room was excellent, the views are unsurpassable and the squirrels were cute. Not sure they were worth the hideous transit and lack of sleep though.