[00:00:00] What's up everyone, and welcome back to another episode of. Full time. Full time to travel time. Travel time. Time. Isaac knows why. I'm excited. You know why I'm excited Isaac? Because we're in the podcast studio. Well, yeah, that's definitely, I love being here. But today we are beginning our quest of the 63 national parks.
I would say we are going back in time. Thank you poll and I want Kim down, so I love it so much. You should do that more. But we're going back in time to 2016, our first national park we ever did. Ever. Together. Together. That's a good point. Yeah. I did a lot before you. Thanks grandma. Um, but yeah, we're going to Grand Canyon National Park and I feel like this is [00:01:00] probably a lot of people's, like First National Park, right?
Yeah, certainly my first national park. And you're not even from Arizona, right? Right, right, right. So today we're gonna be talking about that, obviously, we're gonna be talking about like, why did we choose, how did we end up at Grand Canyon National Park as our first one to go to, and we'll talk about how you guys are listeners, if you wanna go, what things should you plan or prep, or how to book or where to stay, what hikes to do, et cetera, et cetera.
Also, we're gonna be talking about duck sliders. I'm gonna, I'm gonna let you pause on that and then, and then a few things we would like definitely do differently compared to now as well, because that was our first trip. I mean, we all had to start somewhere. Yeah. But we are also, of course, going to be playing not one but two exciting games today.
And Kim is leading the show because, to be completely honest, um, I need some help, Isaac. Okay. Because like this seems like a long time ago, and I need [00:02:00] your help remembering this is you guys. This is actually like before I even wrote stuff down in a travel book. Yeah. So we have only our photos to go off of and that was like, I don't know, like four phones ago for me.
Yeah. So thankfully Isaac has an iPhone with a lot of storage. This is literally our first trip we took together. So yeah, it was a big deal. Yeah. So I mean, on that note, Isaac, how the heck did we end up at Grand Canyon? Like did you? Choose this for us was a spontaneous. What happened? Yeah. So we actually talk about this back in our second episode that didn't get released.
Oh. So we created a whole episode about it and um, it wasn't up to our quality sake and so we sucked. Never released. It sucked. So I had actually, when coming to Arizona, had wanted to start traveling a lot more. I, um, had set up my whole life to be able to travel and I was excited to go out exploring and honestly, I was like waiting to hopefully find a girl oh boy, who wanted to like, go exploring with me.
And it had been here for a couple months. I had been talking to a couple girls, but they all had jobs and like, you [00:03:00] know, it was just difficult. So I decided I wasn't gonna wait anymore and that I was just gonna book a trip. And so everyone had been talking to me about Sedona. So I booked a trip to Sedona.
I got an Airbnb in Cottonwood and I'd planned out to go to Sedona and the Grand Canyon. Um, and I just decided to take action. I was like, I'll book it for two people in case I find someone, but I'm just gonna go. Um, and so then like Kim and I had like started kind of seeing each other around that time and I had booked it like two months ago, about a, probably a month before like we left.
I was like, Hey. Uh, I booked this trip. Do you wanna come on the strip with me? And, and I was like, whoa. Yeah, you were like, seriously, like. I can just go on this trip with you. And also I've like never been on a road trip with anyone other than like family at this point. Yeah. I've never been on a trip with a friend before, so, or more than friend.
Yeah. So we, uh, we booked this trip and, I mean, I had already booked it, but. And [00:04:00] I had wanted to go to the Grand Canyon. I mean, I'd heard about the Grand Canyon. Obviously I'm in Arizona. I still hadn't been to the Grand Canyon after living here for a few months. And I was like, I gotta go check this giant hole in the ground out.
Yeah. Um, and honestly, I didn't really even know it was a national park, nor even while I was there was I aware of the fact of it was a national park, really? Or even what a national park really was. Well, and also how long did we even stay there on that first trip? It was like. One whole day. So the first trip was one day.
That's it. And it was a long day, really long. So we were staying in Cottonwood. So if you don't know in Arizona, Sedona is like world class. Mm. I mean, it is literally epic. It's literally world class. It has a stone formation and color there. Literally, it's the only type of that stone that exists on this planet Earth that we're aware of.
Right. And that was our first stop before going to the Grand Canyon. Right. And we were staying in Cottonwood, which is just. South of Sedona. That's one of my hints is I stay in Cottonwood usually when going to Sedona. 'cause it's a lot cheaper. But you're [00:05:00] only like 15 minutes away, so Right. So, so like the first day we drove, we got into Cottonwood, we had some cool adventures.
The second day we explored Sedona the third day, we're already pretty tired. The third day we drove to the Grand Canyon, which is like a two hour drive from Cottonwood. Yeah. So it was a very long day. So we drove there. We got there and we just were doing like the rim trail that that day. So that's just like a trail that you can walk alongside the rim on the south, uh, entrance.
Mm-hmm. Um, and the south entrance is the main entrance. Right. That is the most popular entrance for sure. South Rim. Mm-hmm. And so, you know, we did that and then we stopped at, um, the lodge there and got to check out the lodge. And then we had a very cool lunch, which were. Don't spoil it yet. It's part of the game.
Oh. Which we'll be told later. Ta ta ta. And then I remember we were actually like, there was like kind of some bench seating and we decided to sit down and build intentions. Yeah. And uh, and we opened [00:06:00] our eyes. Oh, I remember. And like. There was a rainbow jutting out of the center of the Grand Canyon. Like what are the chances that we're building intentions?
We're holding hands or being all cute and intentional together, and then we open our eyes and. There's a rainbow just shooting out of the Grand Canyon. We were like, whoa. So that was pretty cool. Um, yeah, I remember seeing an epic sunset. And then I remember driving home and typ Kim typically is the driver in our relationship, but she was so pooped.
Oh, so pooped that like I had to drive home and I just remember there were thousands of deer. Like thousands of deer that I could see their eyes. Oh yeah. Just their eyes were glowing. 'cause I remember in and out of consciousness because I was so tired. I'm so sorry. You're so tired. Thank you for supporting me.
But I just opened my eyes and it's like dark outside and all you saw were the glowing like eyes of all the deer, thousands. So many of 'em. And then we had to drive through like, I think it was a prescribed burn, but it was like a small forest fire. [00:07:00] Yeah. That, that like literally the whole roadway, like you could barely see it.
You could it barely see in front of you. And if I'm remembering correctly, 'cause we, if we went in May of 2016, that means it's one month after I had my first surgery to put steel bars in my chest. Yeah. So like. Rightfully so. I was pooped. Yeah, for sure. Wow, wow. So I don't think we got back till like 12:00 AM that day.
Day. Oh my gosh. And it was long. So a couple hints here First. When going to the Grand Canyon, where is the best places to stay? So if we're gonna be talking about the South Rim, um, I think the best places to stay are either in the park, those book up very quickly. Um, so you have to be prepared, you know, look ahead, um, 'cause they have.
I think three different lodges that you may be able to stay at in the south room. But honestly, Flagstaff is one of the best places to stay. It's about an hour drive to the park from Flagstaff. And honestly, I'd say maybe even better than Flagstaff, if you're not all about driving. I'm gonna butcher this name, I'm so sorry.
[00:08:00] But there's a nearby town to Grand Canyon. It's like two seon to to sayan, to to science. Yeah. There's just not a lot of. Lodging? No, there's not a lot of lodging, but one benefits to staying there is the shuttle bus in Grand Canyon. One of their shuttles will actually pick you up from that town and drive you.
So if you don't wanna like. Deal with the hassle of like driving and parking and all that stuff, then that can actually help. Otherwise. Flagstaff, I've heard people talk about staying in Williams also. Yeah. So Williams is a small town. Mm-hmm. A bit closer. That's like a half an hour drive up. Um, but again, it's just not a ton of, uh, choices where Flagstaff has an abundance of choices.
So, and ultimately to Isaac's point, I would just stay in the park. Like when you stay at a popular place like Grand Canyon, it only makes sense to be able to like. Wake up and see the sunrise or go to bed and see the sunset. Yeah. Neither the time I went to the south entrance to be staying in the park. So no, but it'd be really nice.
I stayed there with my grandparents before though, and that was really nice. You gotta have some moula and you gotta plan months and months in advance if you're gonna stay in the park. So can I tell you [00:09:00] how many months in advance? Go ahead. I did the research. I know. So, um, because everyone always books like really far in advance, but Grand Canyon allows you to book for the South Rim lodges 13 months out.
Okay. So keep that in mind. Yeah. Um, for the campgrounds, those are only allowed to be booked six months out. Hmm. So campgrounds are helpful. And then the last one, Phantom Ranch, which we will totally talk about. Hint, hint, mules. Um, that one's 15 months out. Okay. So that one's even further. Yeah. So if you wanna stay in the park, you certainly can, but.
Plan ahead. Yes. Um, what about, so what about the other entrances? Yeah, so let's talk about the different entrances because there's actually three main entrances to Grand Canyon. There's two that are a national park and one that's not a national park, but is the Grand Canyon still? Mm-hmm. So, uh, grand Canyon South entrance is by far the most popular.
Yeah. So that's where the most people go. It is the most accessible really from um, Arizona. And you're looking at, it's about a [00:10:00] four hour drive from Phoenix and about a four and a half hour drive from Las Vegas to two major cities in the area, and that that park, that side is open year round. Then you have the northrim.
So the northrim is really for your adventurers. Mm-hmm. It is. Mm-hmm. Out of the way from everything from in the middle of nowhere, everything. I mean, you really can't like fly anywhere and get there quick. So it's about a six hour drive from, uh, Phoenix and it's, I guess only a four and a half hour drive from Vegas as well.
Um, but, but North Rom is not open all year round? No, it's only open from May through October. Uhhuh. And you have to stay in the park at that point because there's literally nothing else that you could. So once you turn in to get into Grand Canyon North, it's an hour drive through a forest before you even get to like anything you're driving for an hour.
Yeah. So, um, there's a couple different lodging opportunities there. We stayed in a cabin. Yeah. Uh, when we went, which was. Pretty nice and fairly affordable, if I'm remembering correctly. Uhhuh, [00:11:00] they also do have a lodge there. Um, again, one of our mistakes when we went to Grand Canyon North is we really didn't prep enough and bring good, good enough food.
Oh no. Uh, 'cause again, you're not leaving to go anywhere to get food. You have nowhere to go. You have nowhere to go. And so there's a couple things is one, they do have like a cafeteria, um, based like. Shop food with mediocre, it was very challenging with a dairy allergy. 'cause like their main food was pizza.
AKA Isaac is lactose intolerant if you don't know that already. So they also have a very beautiful, uh, restaurant in the lodge. Like this is gorgeous with huge windows like overlooking the Grand Canyon. Was that the one with the kachina dolls like lined up on the inside of the Definitely not places.
Definitely. Yeah. You're talking about um, monument Valley. Monument Valley. Oh, shoot. Um. But anyway, I'm so bad at this game. Sorry. Continue on. I didn't know we even played the game anyway. The mistake we made is that you have to reserve a spot like at least a [00:12:00] couple weeks in advance. Oh, to get food. So we wanted to eat there while we were there.
And I didn't realize that you have to reserve a couple weeks in advance 'cause like it gets booked up. So unfortunately, I think one day we did get to eat like lunch in there. But we didn't get to have dinner. And they have like really nice, it's actually like an elevated dining experience. Yeah. Uh, which is pretty cool.
So if you're going to Grand Canyon North, I, I would in hindsight, have definitely booked it, definitely gotten that elevated dining experience and like, amazing views. And also bring snacks. Yeah. Bring snacks, bring sustainable things though don't bring like, you know, m and ms and trail mix kind of things like think about fiber and protein and things your body needs to, and realize when you're getting there, you're not leaving.
So bring the warm clothes you need if you need them. The food you need and not just warm clothes. 'cause like one thing about the Grand Canyon is that the weather changes, especially if you're doing the hikes, like it's gonna be cold, it's gonna be warm, you're gonna have clouds. You're not gonna have clouds like AKA, it's Arizona, but check the weather.
And finally the [00:13:00] third entrance is Grand Canyon West or the West Rim. There he goes. Gotta say that one real slow so it doesn't sound like west or wrist. So this is interesting 'cause it's not actually part of the national park, it's actually run, uh, it's on Native American land run by native. Um, and it is, uh, most often used for people who wanna visit it from Vegas.
'cause it's only about a two, two and a half hour drive from Las Vegas. So what we actually saw there was a lot of buses coming from Vegas. Mm. So you can get like a tour bus from Vegas if you're there because they have like a weekend or something. Yeah. And like the two main things that I remember, grand Canyon West, because we're telling you about all the entrances that we've also been to, we've been all over it.
But the skywalk is one of them. Yeah. And the helicopter tours seem to be a pretty big deal there too. Yeah. So the west entrance doesn't really have hiking like many of the other entrances do. Mm-hmm. But they have the skywalk, which is a cool experience. It's like a glass walkway over the canyon. Oh, it's super cool.
And then they have a couple other, again, [00:14:00] paid experiences like the helicopters. And honestly, we were really lucky. Yeah. Because we went to the skywalk during COVID when nobody else was traveling. So our experience at the skywalk meant we were the only people, the only people on the skywalk when we were there, other than the photographer guy who's like, why don't you take your photo?
And we're like, of course we do. Nobody el like when other. In the universe, are we gonna be on the skywalk and no other human will be on it? Yeah. Like, that's an experience. I told him when we were going, I was like, I bet you this is the most empty the skywalk will ever be in history. Oh my gosh. So yeah, we got real lucky there.
So that was pretty wild. The other interesting thing is I got to talk to, um, one of the natives there and, um, he was telling me how it actually, you know, the, that whole idea was a partnership. I believe. I could be wrong, but I believe it was a German investor. Who had this idea and approached this tribe and they had built the whole thing.
And then the investor had passed away and they'd gone to court and actually the tribe had been able to gain full ownership of Grand Canyon [00:15:00] West, which is pretty cool. So, and it's, yeah, it's the Alap Pi tribe. Yeah. Like you always hear about like, um, the Alii, I think it's the falls in Grand Canyon and everything.
It's, it's their tribe who owns Grand Canyon West? Yeah. Yeah, that's really cool. So we've been to the Grand Canyon now four times, uh, two to the south entrance, one to the north entrance, and one to the west entrance. We've been all over the place, boom. And all over the years too. So we've got to see, I mean, how the Grand Canyon, I would say hasn't changed.
Like I know it's changing all the time, but you go and it's just like, oh my God. Breathtaking. But we were there in 2016 and 2018 and like 2021 and yeah, one of those other years. So I wanna talk some about the trails, but did. Am I, am I good to jump in or you got something? Can I talk about exciting facts first?
Okay. Okay. Thank you. You guys can't see her, but she looks so cute. She's doing like, I'm so cute. She's doing like a little hand thing with her cheeks and everything. Yes. Can you describe what I'm doing right now? She's like, uh. Uh, what do you even, I don't even know how to say this. You are twiddling your fingers on your cheeks.
I was gonna use the word twiddling as [00:16:00] well. Yeah, twiddling. I just, I'm smiling real big and my fingers are twiddling my cheeks. There's some twiddling going on. That's what we can confirm. Anyways, it's not about my cuteness, it's about this game. Okay. All right. Oh, wait, it's not a game. We're not there yet.
Okay. Back up. As Isaac would say, um. Surprising facts about Grand Canyon. Yeah, I like this part too because yeah, we were there in 2016. It was our first national park and to your point, Isaac, like we weren't like, wow, it's a national park kind of thing. You were kind of just like, we're exploring a cool place.
Right. Well, in the Grand Canyon, to me, like it's almost kind of overwhelming. It hard to comprehend it's your brain has a hard time comprehending it and so like it actually looks more like a. Backdrop of a movie. Yes. Than it does like real life, which is kind of crazy. It is off the backdrop of a movie, I'm sure.
Yeah, it is. And it almost looks more real in movies than it does in real life. It's the only part I can really say that about. It's like That's a true point actually. It's like your brain just has a hard time comprehending the vastness of it. So it's 277 miles long [00:17:00] and it's. I believe, yeah, it's over a mile deep as well.
That means it's over 5,280 feet. Yeah. Because I know that's how many feet are in a mile. Excellent. And um, where do you think the Grand Canyon ranks amongst, like what is the most visited national park in the us? Where do you think the Grand Canyon ranks? It's in the top five, I would guess. Um, oh yeah.
You're correct on that. I know, I know two are on the East coast and they're kind of, I mean, they are, smokey Mountain always gets the most Yes, yes, yes. That's one of 'em. And then Shenandoah, but um, I'm guessing it's, it's number three or four. Oh, it's number three. Yeah, it's the third most visited, so you nailed it.
Grand Canyon had 5 million visitors as of 2024, which is still a lot. But the top two is grant, or sorry, great. Smoky Mountains that you just said. Yeah. And then Zion. For sure Zion for sure. And great smokey, like, it, it, it's kind of a skewed most visiting because it's one of the only free national parks.
Yeah. You can just drive in and a lot of people just drive through it. Right, right. Not really like visit it. So it says like [00:18:00] 18 million visitors. It's little skew, but I think those numbers are bit skewed anyway. Um, so Isaac, would you say the Grand Canyon is the largest national park in America?
Definitely not. Oh, okay. Let me follow it up with this then. Of the top five largest national parks in America. Four of those top five are in what state? Well, Alaska obviously. Duh. I didn't, I didn't realize how huge Alaska was until we started looking at, like taking a road trip there. So, interesting. The Grand Canyon National Park is not the biggest national park, but it the national park in the Grand Canyon.
It's only a tiny section, honestly, of the Grand Canyon. Yeah. It's not like the, the National Park is the whole Grand Canyon. No, I had no idea. Yeah, so like obviously the, so those top four are all in Alaska, the top five, like the fifth one is Death Valley. Yeah, I could see that because it's just vast. Oh my God.
Nothingness. We've driven through Death Valley twice. Once without air conditioning. Oh my god. My car. My poor car. Okay, next, next. Uh, factual question. What's the most popular trail in Grand Canyon? Uh, bright Angel, for [00:19:00] sure. Yeah. You know why? Well, it's the easiest trail to get down to the bottom of it.
Right? So you do have to have a permit to go all the way down and sleep there. Yeah. But you don't have to have a permit to just like start it. It's nine and a half miles one way. Yeah. To get to the bottom. Um, so that's why people like sleep there. Uh, but it's an out and back trail. So it goes down to the Colorado River and then you come back up, but.
You definitely see like really gorgeous views the whole way down. For sure. And then last fact, which rocks always blow my mind and Isaac and I found out that as kids we both collected rocks and as adults. We still collect. We still collect, we still collect rocks. You should see, we just moved into our new place in Tempe, Arizona, and I have found bags and bags of rocks and I don't label them or anything, so I'm like, I don't know where this rock is from, but that looks cool.
For a while we were just sewing in a backyard in our, in our house. You know, it just like, oh my God, this rock's from all over the world vacuum. Oh, now I got downsized. Bags of rocks from crazy places we're [00:20:00] ridiculous. But the Grand Canyon's super cool because it has. 2 billion. I'm making the face of like Dr.
Evil in Austin Powers right now, 2 billion years of geologic history. Cool, cool, cool. No, but it is cool. So like the youngest rocks are at the tip top of the cliffs and those are 270 million years old. Okay. And then every layer, 'cause you see the different colored layers, those are all different kinds of rock.
Like you have, uh, well, and the oldest rocks are obviously at the bottom of those layers, but you have like different kinds of granite and shale and different kinds of limestone and like a bunch of types of rock that I can't and will not pronounce today. Cool. So yes. Yeah, those are my facts. Excellent.
Excellent. You ready for a game? Okay. I guess, what do we get to talk about trails? Uh, well, the title of the game is. Trail tail or tall trail. So lemme talk about some trails first and then let's play the game. Ooh. And then it'll lead another trail. Trail, trail, trail. Yeah. Okay, so [00:21:00] on the South Rim, which is the main place that people are gonna go for hiking, there are a few main trails to do.
Bright Angel Trail, obviously is the most popular. I just need some facts. Yeah, yeah. It is the easiest way to get down Uhhuh. Um, a portion of it, if not. Much of it is paved actually. Ooh. Can I also mention Bright Angel? Like Yeah. It might seem like a breeze going down, but Isaac, you know how much elevation gain that thing is?
Yeah, I do. Holy, it's 4,380 feet. That is very specific. So it almost, almost a mile. Yeah. On the way up. So people are like, oh, it's so nice going down, and then they're like, oh my God, this is tough. So it's, and canyons are a little interesting 'cause we climb mountains all the time. Mm-hmm. But canyons are like the complete opposite, like.
Climbing up a mountain is the hard part. And then down you're like, okay, and this is the kind of when you're tired, but like, it's the opposite with a canyon where it's like going down is the easy part and climbing up, it's like, oh my God, when are we going to get to the top? Yeah, that's real tough. Um, maybe that's why we Summit Mountains a lot more.
So, uh, south Kanab Trail is, uh, a bit, wait, wait, is it Kanab? Oh, sorry. Kba. Kba. [00:22:00] South KBA Trail. That's a tough one. KAI. B. A B kba. So it's actually not quite as long. It's about a seven mile one way, but it's actually a higher elevation change at 4,800 feet. Whoa. Um, and so this is definitely a bit more of a technical, uh, hike than Bright Angel, and you definitely need a permit for that one.
I'm pretty sure as well. And then the one that we actually did, uh, which is really cool, is the Horseshoe Mesa Trail. So this is, um, you actually start at the Grand View Trail. Um, so that's a parking spot. It's like once you get into the park and you take a right and you're going alongside that road, it's a grand view trail.
A ton of people just stopped for the view there 'cause of a great viewpoint. It was actually an old mining trail that was built in 1893. Um. Ooh. And it allowed miners to access copper depos in, uh, the Horseshoe Mesa. So did you say depos? Yeah. Instead of depots. Is it depos? Now you're making me [00:23:00] question myself.
Did we do this hike with Scott and Elise or no? We did. So, uh, two of our good friends from New York came and visited us. Shout out, I was a little bit worried about taking them all the way down to the bottom of the canyon, 'cause that is a hefty, hefty hike. Um mm-hmm. And so we decided to do this one in.
Stead. Um, it is approximately a six mile round trip. So six mile instead of 18 miles. Yeah. Uh, it was really cool though, like we had scenic views the whole way through. I mean, you're literally like inside the Grand Canyon Well, and you like hiking down and you look back and the stairs looked like Lincoln logs, like Yeah, because they, they braced underneath the stairways with like Isaac said.
Logs. Yeah. So they were literally like holding up the foundation of them, which is really cool. I also vaguely remember Scott walking past like. A high radiation. Yeah, there was like warning radiation. It was like warning, do not enter uranium. And he is like taking pictures of it and he's like, oh yeah, look at this.
I radium. I was like, Hey, maybe Elisa's. Like, do not go Scott. I was like, uh, stay away from that. Uh, wild. That was a cool trail [00:24:00] though. Even not doing a hundred percent of the whole thing like that was. Definitely worth it. Well, so we did do the whole trail. We just didn't get to the bottom of the Grand Canyon.
Right. So you go about two thirds down onto a mesa. What I thought the coolest part was, was actually when we came back up and we were walking along the rim trail and seeing the sunset, we could clearly see the mesa that we had walked onto. I remember. And it gave like context to the whole park. Yes. Like it, it allowed us to like, again, it allowed our brains to comprehend the vastness of it at a much more detailed level.
'cause like we could see a part that we had actually like. Ben on down there into the canyon, so that was very cool. I also just wanna give a shout out to you, Isaac, because he not only does this like for me, but anytime we're on a hike with any friends or family or whoever, it's like, he's always like, Hey guys, don't forget to turn around and look where you came from.
And we're like, oh my God, we. Did that and he's, it's amazing. He's, yeah, that tiny little dot, like that's where you were. And the same thing. I remember when we got back at the top of the trail, I could not help but like grab random strangers and be like, we're at that table myself. People were [00:25:00] giving us high fives because like I know we came up and we were, we were beat, I mean we were very tired of like almost run out of water.
Like we're hiking on people. Like did you just hike all the way from down there? We're like, yeah. And they're like, ah. And everyone's giving us high five. Oh, it was so beautiful. And then I also had used my water bottle trick. Yes. I talk about, uh, how we use a cooler. It's much more, uh, efficient and everything.
We don't actually use ice in a cooler. We freeze water bottles. 'cause you can always just refreeze the water bottles. Yeah, but I had pulled one out 'cause I was like, I bet you were gonna be thirsty. So I'd pulled one out before we left, and when we got back it was still like ice cold with a little bit of ice, but mostly melted.
And I just remember like Scott and Elise being, Scott was so happy, so excited that we had ice cold water, like ready to drink. He was like sanctuary. Yeah. He was so pumped about it. Um, really brilliant though. If you're going to Grand Canyon, I, I definitely recommend you do that though. This, this is definitely, if you're not.
Up for the entire hike down into the canyon. This is a great experience. It's very unvisited. I mean, oh, I meant the water, [00:26:00] ice hack, not the trail, but, well, I'm talking about the trail still. So I agree with Philip. The trail is, I mean, I, I barely think we saw anyone else on the whole trail, to be honest with you.
I don't remember seeing a single person, if I'm being honest. Yeah, I mean, I think we saw maybe one, two, like there was a good, uh, napping spot. I oftentimes nap on long trails and on the way back up I was feeling it, so I was like, Hey, I'm gonna nap here for 10 minutes. That was great. Um, so yeah, that, that's, uh, the trail that we did.
So what about, you had looked up what is the trail that we did on the North Rim? So that was a Cliff Spring trail, if you remember. That was actually super cool and a really, really special moment because we, this is the highest elevation in all of the Grand Canyon. It's um. Or at least a park. Or at least a park.
Yeah, that's more specific. 8,800 feet elevation, I think. But, um, my grandpa had passed away. My mom's dad and I took him here and I poured his ashes over [00:27:00] this, the tallest point in the park, which was really special. And Isaac, you remember what happened after I poured his ashes out. Why don't you tell me?
Ooh. So I poured his ashes. I was like tearing up. Isaac was recording. It was a really beautiful moment and a red. Heart shaped balloon emerged from the center of the Grand Canyon. Oh yeah. And was like wafting through the air and there was no one around. It was just you and me and we were like, oh my God.
Yeah. Like it, what a crazy moment. I got goosebumps talking about it though. That was, it's really crazy. But yeah. What a fun time for, for my grandpa to explore. I just, I just remember we were hiking around the Grand Canyon North and I had, like I mentioned Pangaea for some reason, and you looked at me and I had just listened to little Dickies pillow talk and in it like he is, he's.
You cannot say. You cannot say, just go look up that song by Lil Dickie called Pillow Talk and, uh, and listen to the part about Pangaea. Because Kim, yeah, Kim. Kim, I realized at Kim didn't really [00:28:00] understand what Pangaea was, and so I like, I was like, I literally get to quote this song right now. And so I looked at her.
That happened at Grand Canyon? Yeah. Yeah. And I quoted the song and, and Kim's like. What did you say to me? And better yet, to clarify, Kim knows things. Kim was taught things in history class and social studies and all that good stuff. But then like I never talk about Pangea normal conversations, so sure. I forgot what it was, but I'm like, I'm like, you do realize that like your best friend, one of your best friends, talks about Pangaea all the time and worked at a company called Pangaea.
And Kim's like, yeah, I don't really know what she does. I still dunno what that place is about besides the point. Anyway, I think this is a good shout out. Little diggy. Shout out. Brain, brain, brain. You wanna brainstorm? Whoa. Did somebody say brainstorm? Brainstorm. It's a, it's a brainstorm. Gonna get some bright ideas.
We're gonna trail tail. Okay, [00:29:00] cool. He talked about trails. Now we need to figure out if it's true. Or if it's false. I want brain to do this though. Like, can we tag in brain for this? Um, but yeah, so only we know the truth about these experiences and better yet, sometimes like last time, Isaac, Isaac needs to tell me if I'm telling the truth or not.
So Isaac was Grand Canyon the first place where I tried Duck for the first time? I mean. I would say no. You've probably tried Duck but didn't know about it. So I'm saying it's the first place that you're aware that you ate Duck. That is a very specific ding, ding, ding. Because he is right. I I sure maybe, but like this is a first for sure.
I know. I tried duck and now you can talk about where we ate the duck at. Oh yeah. So we had duck sliders at one of the lodges. Do you know which lodge? Definitely not. Oh, oh, great. Great research. It's one of the main lodges that has a restaurant. It's at South Room. Yeah, it was definitely on South Red. It, it was, it was a nice, it was a good experience.
That was actually, it was, they were great. Was Duck is [00:30:00] interesting. It's like kind of fatty, but like a little greasy it, but it doesn't give you heartburn. You've got good though. Omegas in there. Yeah. Yeah. It was, it was good. It was interesting. Uh, would I do it again? Yes, yes, I would. Excellent. Question number two.
You already said this one. We saw a rainbow at the Grand Canyon. We're gonna pass over that. True, that is true. Um, because I didn't have real hiking shoes at this point. Uh, I slipped on the trail and I fell on a cactus. No, that is false. And I've never fallen on a cactus. Woohoo. Let's, and I, um, don't let people, like if I'm bringing people out on trails, I won't especially like Grand Canyon, those types.
I will not let them come with me unless they have hiking shoes. So, like Scott and Elise, I was like, Hey, before you come, you gotta buy hiking shoes. Like yeah, they just make such a big difference in safety if you're gonna be hiking mountains or elevation where you have the chance of falling. Get hiking shoes and it's because Isaac loves us.
Yes. That's why he looks out for his friends, his family, for me, for himself. Thank you, Isaac. Yeah. Next question. [00:31:00] When you're near one of the visitor centers at the Grand Canyon, they have the words Grand Canyon like made out of driftwood. It's really cool. I don't remember. So yes. No. Do I sound this convincing?
It's definitely false. Okay, but what, because I don't remember that. I know. Um, nice one though. I think, oh, that's, that's the first one you got me on finally. Geez. But what they did have there, if you do remember, was this tree that was perfectly like, bent into an L shape and it was perfect for Papa Mato.
Yeah. So you have a picture of me like sitting on this like perfectly. L-shaped tree is very sturdy by the way. And there's definitely like, it's smoothed out so you can tell a lot of people have like touched it or sat on that specific spot. So nice. Yeah. Cool, cool, cool. Yeah. Cool. Cool. That would be a long word, grand Canyon to like build out a drift wood, but that would be cool.
I support the idea. Yeah. And, um, that is my game for this one. Okay. [00:32:00] Don't worry, we have another game coming soon, but this was a short version and also you had shared a little bit of it already. Nice. Yeah. Yeah. So let's talk about like, if somebody's visiting the Grand Canyon though. Okay. There's, there's a lot of things to talk about.
You've talked about some of them, but let's start with like, when is the best time to go? Yeah, I mean, so the south entrance, it's pretty open. I mean, obviously it's much cooler up at the Grand Canyon mm-hmm. Than down south. So like the summer months aren't as hot, you know. Um, but they can still get kind of warm.
Obviously you can get very cold too, but I'm guessing we haven't been in the winter, but I'm guessing it's gorgeous. So like, and cold. And it's cold and I bet there's way less people. So you just nailed it. Like the best time to go, I would say is like spring and and fall. Like it's gonna be cooler, but you'll definitely have less crowds.
So if you want less crowds, like late April, what? Yeah, late April to like early June and then September to October. And definitely Isaac will always [00:33:00] tell you, go on weekdays. If you can, if you can specifically like Tuesday and Wednesday though, um, because like Mondays you still have overflow from the weekend and Fridays for obvious reasons.
And we always do our Wonderlust Wednesdays. Yeah. So that's when we go out and adventure. And like Isaac said, like if you can stay on site, like at a lodge or camping instead of having to travel to it, that is great. And speaking. Of less crowds. How, how do you avoid the crowds otherwise, like what times would you suggest to go Isaac?
Yeah. I mean, it's often early morning. Mm-hmm. Or actually a key hint is like at like two or three o'clock, all the kids start like crashing and the adults I would crash you. And so like it, it really opens up a lot of times. So if we're, yeah. If, you know, if we're gonna go for a Friday, Saturday, Sunday, let's say we're gonna do like kind of the most popular thing Friday morning.
'cause that's before a lot of people has have gotten there yet, right? Mm-hmm. So we'll do by far the, the most popular thing then. [00:34:00] And then Saturday we oftentimes will either do scenic drive because in Grand Canyon there is a drive. It's not that scenic 'cause you can't see much, but you can go and see different points on the drive.
So the drive itself, you really can't see the canyon much, but there's points that you can drive into and see. See 'em. So we did do the whole scenic drive that brings you out the east side entrance, um, on the South Rim. Mm-hmm. Um. Yeah. And then so we often times do that and then we'll go like into the park at like two or three o'clock when things are winding down.
Yes. And then oftentimes watching sunsets. So sunsets at the Grand Canyon, sunrises and sunsets are epic. So epic. Yeah. Both of 'em. Um, and what it does to the rocks is just like out of this world, it's amazing. So Mathers Point is considered one of the best sunrise spots. Mm. Uh, five 30 to 7:00 AM typically speaking.
Again, if you're staying in the park, that becomes a lot easier. Mm-hmm. Um. And then, you know, we got to see, uh, we've seen a couple epic sunsets at the park. Yeah. Um, and there is a whole shuttle service. [00:35:00] So the shuttle service does bring you to a lot of the main, uh, like viewpoints alongside the park. So once you park in one of the parking lots and the Grand Canyon has like.
Like multiple massive parking lots. Like Yeah, they have a lot of parking. Yeah. But I mean, 5 million visitors. They have a lot of visitors too. Yeah. But I mean, we've been to parks where there was not enough parking. I don't think there's really that issue in the Grand Canyon very often. That's true.
Especially when more people use shuttle buses. Mm-hmm. Than you have less congestion. And before we talk about shuttle buses, I just wanted to add to what you said, Isaac, like if you're starting early. Get up before 8:00 AM because most people are getting up at 8:00 AM or later. Yeah. And a key tip is when you wake up, or maybe you only have a couple days, or maybe it's a weekend and you have to go skip all the popular overlooks first, skip all the touristy popular things, and then like Isaac said, when it hits that two or 3:00 PM point, then go back and do all those epic overlooks because.
Here's the thing, the lighting is gonna be better on those mountains a lot of the time anyways. Around three. Yeah. So go back and hit it. I just wanted to add [00:36:00] that, but yeah, shuttle buses dope. Yeah. And they, um, I mean, Gizo, Petes, we never used a shuttle bus once, but Right. Did we? We definitely, so you, you can drive the east side, but you cannot drive towards the west side.
You have to take a shuttle bus. Oh, no. Yeah. There's certain areas you have to, so we definitely took the shadow bus over that. The first time we went, we really just stayed on the rim the first time we went. And that's what a lot of people do. Yeah. Um, and so, you know, that's, uh, we took the shuttle bus definitely out there and I'm pretty sure that's where we saw our sunset.
Yeah. And the, uh, the shuttle buses travel every 10 to 15 minutes. Yeah. So it's not like you're gonna be waiting very long, but like Isaac said. There's two shuttle routes. 'cause there's four different routes. Um, two of them are all year round. And those hit things like Isaac just said, the, the overlooks, the campgrounds, the visitor centers, like things like that.
Um, and then one of the routes from May to September does the. I'm gonna spoil it against tusan ion, uh, that, that place that you can stay. So if [00:37:00] you're staying in that town outside of the park, they can pick you up from there too. Gotcha. And then the fourth route, I don't know the name of this one, but that one takes you specifically to areas you cannot get to by car.
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, so yeah, I mean, just walking, walking the van is cool. Going on the, the. Shuttle a bus and checking it out. Mm-hmm. Um, you know what? Sunset is? Cool. Sunset. Sunset at Desert View. Watchtower, Ooh is, is a great place. But sunset really, almost any viewpoint is a great place. And Kim, you know what I wanna do at Grand Canyon that we've never gotten to do?
What's that? I wanna get myself a mule. Yeah. He haul, you know what I mean? Okay. So that's when you're really climbing down to the bottom that you were, oh my gosh. Bring, get one of those. So do you need a reservation to go to Grand Canyon? I do not believe so negative. You are correct. Yeah. So you don't need one.
You do need one. If you're like doing lodging or camping for entry though, like just use your park pass or, um, if you don't have one, get one. That's an amazing feature. Uh, but also it's, it's [00:38:00] $35 per car right now. I, I think is the last time I looked up. Um, otherwise. Phantom Ranch reservations is where you can get that mule.
And I think that's at the bottom of the Bright Angel Trail. It's at the bottom of one of the trails. At the very, very bottom, uh, is a phantom ranch, and it's like a whole lottery system. Isaac, like it sounds like it's quite tough to get yourself a mule, and I know I mentioned earlier that. You can play that Phantom Ranch lottery 15 months out.
Yeah. 'cause it's, it's literally on the bottom of the Grand Canyon. Yeah. So that's where, if you're like hiking down, you don't have to bring like, uh, camping equipment to hike at the, to stay at the bottom because there are people who do, um, like round trip in one day. It's alar, it's 18 mile fandom Ranch is on the bottom and it's hard to get in.
Yeah. Moving on. Yeah. What else do you got? I don't know what you, you got the outline. I feel like I hear something. Huh? I think I hear something too. Is it a donkey? Like what do I, is that a [00:39:00] goat? Oh no, I do you do you know what it is? What is it? I think, I think it's a national park adventure quiz game.
This one outta control. Yeah. I'm so ready. Isaac, tell us the rules. The rules of this game are simple. He we're gonna ask questions about different national park stuff, and you don't give the right answer. You give the first answer that pops into your brain, which sometimes Kim struggles with, but I will do a good job.
Cool. We will alternate. I will go first. Okay. Okay. Isaac, when you think, wow, holy crap, look at that. What is the first national perk that comes to mind? Or like what specific moment? I would have to say that's Bryce Canyon. Oh my. This uh, this will be one of the next podcasts we record 'cause it's the second national park we visited.
But like, just driving into it, I just had never seen anything like it. I mean, you're driving into a massive sand castle, like, like a sand castle [00:40:00] that like giants built and it was just like, what, what is happening here? Yeah. So yeah. That's a good one though. I agree. It's like clones of many sandcastles, like everywhere.
Hundreds of. Thousands of them, right? Yeah. Yeah. All right. What you got, if you had to live permanently in one of the national parks we visited, which would it be? I mean, my no-brainer answer is always Rocky Mountain, like I know I go to it a lot, but like one, I'm gonna have animals, two, I'm gonna have green.
Aside from Rocky Mountain. Aside from Rocky Mountain, I'm gonna say Olympic National Park. Interesting. Okay. Because you have a wide variety of different things. Like I have the rainforest, I have like greenery, I have flowers, I have so many animals. I'm nearby to water. The, yeah. There's actually parts of Olympic that are on the beach.
Oh, the, the unattached from the main area. But they are technically like oversee by Olympic National Park. That's where Forks is. Uh, from Twilight? Yeah. Or no, LA Push Beach. Yeah. Let me get my toilet history right. Cool. Cool. [00:41:00] All right. Your turn. I just, oh, yeah, go ahead. Yeah, yeah, you did it. You did it. Yeah.
It's your turn. Actually did, yeah, it's my turn. That it's your turn to answer. Which National Park would you go to again? Again, again, and it would never, ever get old, I mean. All of them. I mean, it's a valid answer. I was wondering if you'd gimme a specific or you'd be like everything. Yeah, so, so like you could go to Lassen for like all time.
N no. I mean there's some that are better than others for sure. Um, no offense to Lassen. We love you. We just don't want to go to you again. And again and again. Again, again, again. Zion definitely pops into my mind. We've done a decent amount of Zion, but we definitely have like more and more to do. Yeah, I mean, I don't think I could ever get tired of Rocky Mountain Yellow.
Stone. Mm-hmm. I'd love to go back to Sequoia. Um, so all of them except maybe a handful you might get tired of. Yeah. And like SUA National Park here in Arizona, it's just like we get the landscapes all the time. And so to me it's not like my, it's one of my least favorite [00:42:00] national parks. But then Hint at Scott Shapiro again, he's like, oh my God.
So it's just because I live in the landscape all the time. Right. You know? So, um, I love how much he loves Saguaro, so. Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. All right. Okay. Which a, which animal encounter in the national park do you secretly never want to experience again? Ugh. What, what type of animal situation would Kim ever be like, no, I want to, I don't want to do that again.
Did just channel you smokey, I guess. Is there any animal situation that like, I didn't enjoy? I gonna say no, man. Like I want them all. All right. I can think of a couple. Yeah. Tell me. Ease me on here. Well, one, you almost got trampled by a moose. You didn't. Yeah, I'm okay with it. That's the closest I've ever been to a moose.
Said I'm okay with it. I would accept it, even if it like broken arm, I'd be like. You're just being your gentle, giant self. You know, I would say the fly that chased you, that's not an [00:43:00] animal, it's an insect. Uh, I mean, it's, it's close. Okay. But I, I will piggyback off of this because this was a terrible moment.
I don't, I don't wanna do again, we're like on this trail and this, I mean, this fly was enormous too. Like what the size of my. Thumbprint, like huge. And he's buzzing all around my face and I keep swatting him and he's not going away. And then like, I just eventually tried to like run away from him a little bit and then I stopped and then he just came at me again.
I, and then Isaac tried to protect me. I came Defended you. Yeah. And oh, I swung at it. I full up connected with it. I watched the flag go like shooting like 15 feet away. You're punching straight in the jaw. I watched it do like quadruple flips. Then somehow stop, stare at us for a second and then just beline it right at Kim again, not even joking.
And Isaac was like, Kim, run, run. That's crazy. And we're like running full speed trying to outrun a fly. What did he want? We'll never know. Do we care? No. No, not really. No. I just don't want it to happen again. What a [00:44:00] crazy question. Yeah. Um, which park moment felt like you were in a completely different planet?
- I'm gonna go with Carlsbad. Oh my God. Yeah. Yeah. I mean there's, there's multiple parks where there sections that like, you don't feel like are planted on earth, but like Carlsbad is like another level because you're under, you're underground and it's like, you're like, underworld. Is this a whole nother world that we don't know exists?
Like it's kind of crazy to think about this massive. Cavern and like underneath you that like you would just have no clue was there. Like we walked up and around on a trail around the visitor's center, like literally walking on top of people in the, in the cave and had no clue it was there. It's just nuts.
That's what I love about caves. Yeah. But honestly like Carlsbad. Yeah, you're totally right. It was, it was months after. It was maybe even a year after you and I still couldn't even, we still haven't even really even looked at, look at our photos. Yeah. Like it's just so, it's like the Grand Canyon, but underground.
Yeah. Like it's overwhelming to look at. It's a good, that's a good [00:45:00] point. Yeah, because. Because all these other parks say it's like, it's the Grand Canyon of blah, and like it never lives up to the Grand Canyon. Yeah, it's Oh, that's cute. People should really stop saying that. But like, if you're gonna say it for anything, say it for carlsburg ca, but like, I can, I I agree with Kim on that.
It is, it's the Grand Canyon of, of caves. Grand Canyon of caves. Alright. What is the most ridiculous or embarrassing thing that's happened to you or us in a national park? I mean, oh wait, that's not National Park. I can't name that one. What is the most embarrassing? I'm so terrible at knowing this right away.
Oh, okay. I'm pretty sure it was Zion, Isaac. And I'm pretty sure we did your favorite trail. The narrows and our shoes were soaking wet. We didn't have shoes. We didn't, I don't think we even had hiking poles at the point. No, we didn't. A terrible choice. Oh, a terrible choice. But like the water was really high at that point.
It was up to our hips and the current was really strong besides the [00:46:00] point. We got through it, we came back, we were exhausted. We were. Famished and we were like, let's go get some food. So we came inside and we took off our shoes and our socks and we put them outside the door and we walked in the restaurant with our bare feet.
'cause we just like our, we were wet. We were real wet. And I think that's number one embarrassing thing. I think the second part to the embarrassing was like, didn't you not bring money? Yeah. So like we sat down, we ordered, we were. So hungry. And then we realized because we were hiking a water trail that we like left everything in the car.
So we're like scrounging through had, what do you have? What do you have in the backpack we had, and we found like $14 and so I had to call the waitress over and it was like, Hey, cancel the orders. We have $14. What can we buy? He was so hungry and we ended up getting like a half. Sandwiches and a soup or something.
Thank God. It was something, and she was really nice. Isaac was really nice. Was so nice. He was like, I swear, like I will when I go back, I will get you extra [00:47:00] money so I can tip you. Because I, I was like, I was like, I, I literally cannot tip you because like all the money is going to pay for this, but, and you did, you did tip her.
We went, we came back, uh, later that, uh, week and yeah, I went back. I, I like, it was like, Hey Lee, you kept your word. Leave, I'm leaving this money for this, this woman, you know, make sure she gets it. I'm sure she's faced crazier moments, like from tourists and things, but like I definitely felt like a little embarrassed both by like the naked feet in the restaurant.
Yeah. And the lack of money and the fact that we couldn't pay and the fact that we had to be like, please cancel our order. Yeah. And like Kim and I are like, like trying to save you a half sandwich and soup and we are so freaking hungry. Right. And not. Scarf it right away, like, oh man, that was it. Cool. All right.
Your question. That's it? Or my, my question for you. That's it. That's it. That's, we did it. Can I like sneak in one more for fun? Okay. Ah, yeah. All right. Which, hey, it's our podcast. We get to choose, uh, touche. What park made you feel like such a tiny blip in this [00:48:00] giant universe? Papa Grand Canyon now?
Honestly, like really that one? Yeah. It just, it's just such a huge. Landscape. It's just like, holy crap. Like I said, I really couldn't like wrap my head around Grand Canyon until we hiked down to that Mesa and, and once I could see the mesa that we had been on and I had been down there on the Mesa, so I understood what it looked like down there.
Like then my head was able to kind of wrap its my brain around like, what am I even comprehending right now? Yeah, that's true. Uh, to be completely honest, I was sure you were gonna say Canyon Lands because like. Yeah. That's the only park that gave you a nightmare. Yeah, that one, that one gave me some nightmares of, uh, with heights and I don't, I love heights, so, yeah.
I mean, I gotta look up the stats on that one when we talk about it. Like, figure out how deep that one is too. It's, well, so the, the thing about canyon lands, it's not like the canyons. I mean, the canyons are deep, but it's more like you're super high up than also looking into super deep canyons. It looks like you're looking like, if I were an ant, this is probably what the crack in a [00:49:00] sidewalk looks like.
Yeah. You know. So that would've been my answer. All right. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. All right. Cool. Uh, thanks for joining us on the National Park Event Quest game. Where Quest. For. A Quest on Excellent. Yeah. But. If you've been enjoying the show so far or have found any value in, I've enjoyed it. Anything that we have said, thank you, Isaac.
It would be totally dope of you to leave us a positive review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you are listening to this. That would be awesome and amazing. Like your review helps more people find us, which don't you just wanna help us do that. That would be great. That would be great. But yeah, also follow us on social media and all the other places, right?
So you can keep. Enjoying our adventures and our quest to do what Isaac get to all 63. National Park National Parks, that's my movie. Could be good one. Again, that's my movie voice. Isaac just introduced me to the show heroes that I've never seen before, and he's got that voice like in a world where blah, blah, blah happens.[00:50:00]
That's all I'm thinking of. Anywho. Um, what I was gonna tell you is in addition to the whole Grand Canyon, we're putting out a blog that is the top five mistakes people make when visiting the Grand Canyon National Park. Oh, cool. So. There's definitely some things to avoid on how to just have a good time at the Grand Canyon without getting, you know, avoid how to have a good time.
No, no. Let's make sure you do have a good time by avoiding the common mistakes because geez, like. To not have to worry about crowds and missing your shoes or forgetting your wallet. We didn't do any of these things. No, it's a different part, different time. But yes, check out the blog on our website full time to travel time.com.
Top five Mistakes People Make when Visiting the Grand Canyon. And thanks for joining us on this episode. Like. This is our first national park is a pretty big deal. Yeah. Yeah. The first one that we'd ever been to didn't even really realize it was a national park, to be honest with you. To Isaac. Yeah. I didn't even like going [00:51:00] to it.
I don't think I really understood that it was a national park. It was just a Grand Canyon. You know, it's something that you hear around all across the world. Mm-hmm. Is the Grand Canyon. And I will say like. In a romantic sense. This, this was really special, Isaac. 'cause like you took me on this adventure.
Mind you, you were just trying to find a person to fill that spot, right? Because you had already put Well, I wanted to find a special person. Was it me? Yeah. Aw. But it was really special. So thank you for choosing me. Yeah. I love you. Yeah, I love you too. Aw, aw. All right. On that note, thanks for joining us on.
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