I will be traveling to Las Vegas for my nephew’s wedding in early August 2011. We would like to fly in early and stay at the Grand Canyon one or two nights and do the White Water rafting trip from the west rim down and the helicopter back up.

What is your recommendation on where we should fly in to?  Where is a good place to stay that would still have availability?  Is it better to stay at the South Rim and drive over to the West Rim?  We also still need to make flight & room reservations for Vegas.  I have looked at discounted flight/room packages on line.  Is there a way to get rooms in the Grand Canyon 1 or 2 nights and then Vegas the other nights?

We have never traveled to this area and would like to take in as much of the outdoors as possible.  Or as much as we can handle due to the heat in August!

 

Thanks for your help,
Lori L., Pensacola, FL

Hello Lori!

Thanks for your email.

I assume for the Las Vegas portion of your stay, you’ll either stay at or near the location of the wedding and will easily find Las Vegas accommodations that will suit your needs, has availability, etc. August is not the peak season in Las Vegas so you should have no trouble finding a room there.

You may need a total of 3 nights to really do this pre-wedding portion of your trip. This is big country out here… lots of driving, walking, and touring makes for quite action-packed, and thus tiring, long days. Depending on your arrival time (you’re smart to try to arrive early; from the east coast, you’ll be gaining time but still, flying cross-country can be tiring) you may want to spend one night in Phoenix or Scottsdale or Las Vegas, depending on which itinerary you choose, and rest up for the next few days of moderate-to-heavy driving, walking, rafting and touring.

Here are two ways to do this trip with handy links to options for hotels, tours and packages:

• Day/Night 1: Fly into Phoenix (one way). Stay overnight at one of the hotels near Phoenix Airport.
• Day 2/Night 2: Drive to the South Rim (4 hours.) See the South Rim and stay 1 night at one of these hotels near the South Rim.
• Day 3/Night 3: Drive to Peach Springs early (about 2 hours) and depart on the 1-day whitewater rafting. They’ll drive you back to Peach Springs. That night, stay at the Hualapai Lodge in Peach Springs.
• Day 4: Drive to Las Vegas (about 3 hours.)
• After the wedding and the Las Vegas portion of your trip, fly home from Las Vegas (one way.)

Or

• Day 1/Night 1: Fly into Las Vegas (round trip). Have some fun and stay the night in Las Vegas. I suggest you book a nice but budget-friendly hotel off the Las Vegas Strip for this quick overnight.
• Day 2/Night 2: Drive to Peach Springs, AZ very early (about 3 hours) for whitewater rafting all day. They’ll drive you back to Peach Springs. Stay at the Hualapai Lodge in Peach Springs.
• Day 3/Night 3: Drive yourselves to the South Rim (about 2 hours.) See the South Rim all day, stay in or near the South Rim that night.
• Day 4: Drive to Las Vegas (about 5 hours.)
• Fly the return round trip home from Las Vegas.

When you book your whitewater rafting through the Hualapai tribe (Hualapai Lodge and River Rafting Packages are available) do add on the Grand Canyon Skywalk. You might as well do it as long as you’re already paying for the rafting and other mandatory fees applied to being on Hualapai land.

The South Rim is the “real Grand Canyon” and will give you an unforgettable and different experience than the West Rim, with plenty of easy walking, light to moderate hiking, education, dining, etc. Staying overnight at the Rim may be very limited in availability if not sold out for your dates, but you should be able to find something Williams (about an hour south of the South Rim.)

You’ll probably book your Grand Canyon and Las Vegas stays separately, on two separate “packages”… e.g. your Las Vegas nights alone and then a Grand Canyon heli+rafting package through the Hualapai Tribe and/or a Grand Canyon South Rim flight+hotel package through a tour booking service such as Viator.com, AllGrandCanyonTours.com or AllLasVegasTours.com.

Enjoy your trip!
– ChristinaToo

Dear Arizona Travel:

I am researching for at trip to Las Vegas in July.  I will be with 25-30 men, we are celebrating our 50th birthday.  We would like to take a 1-day white water rafting trip (class IV or V).  We are not interested in hiking, it is more about the white water!  Please give me your recommendations!

–Mitch M.

Hi, Mitch! What a great idea; you guys will have a great time. Because of your need to do a 1-day trip, with a departure from Las Vegas, you’re limited to just this one option, but I assure you, it’s a great one. The Grand Canyon White Water Rafting Trip from Las Vegas tour found here includes:

• Complimentary Las Vegas hotel pickup and return included!
• Enjoy a comfortable air-conditioned drive by van from Las Vegas to the Grand Canyon (departure is from Peach Springs, AZ – about 3 hours from Las Vegas – 152 miles.)
• Enjoy approximately 5.5 hours of rafting through rapids reaching class 3 to class 6!
• Raft approximately 40 miles through the Grand Canyon with your expert rafting guide as sheer 4,000-foot cliffs surround you!
• Complimentary picnic lunch included!
• Ascend 4,000 feet from the floor of the Grand Canyon to the rim in a luxury jet helicopter! (7-minute flight approximately).
• Maximum of only eight passengers per raft
• This is a once-in-a-lifetime experience
• Native Hualapai guides ensure your safety throughout your rafting experience
• The helicopter ascent is weather permitting

This is a motorized trip so you will not be paddling, but you will experience exhilarating rapids nonetheless. With 8 passengers per raft, you’ll obviously need to book several rafts for your large group. You can expect a 15 hour day (approximately) from beginning to end. As an added bonus, this trip is currently on special, with a savings of $109.00 per person off the recommended retail rate of $578.99.

Enjoy your mens’ trip, Mitch. And Happy Birthday!

– ChristinaToo

Bob and Ellie Haan, Lafayette, took a whitewater raft trip on the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon Aug. 16 through 26.

ACCOMMODATIONS

A rafting trip through the Grand Canyon was something my wife and I had dreamed about for years. On two different occasions, I had hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon and back in the same day, but a rafting trip had to be booked a year in advance. Last summer we made reservations a year in advance for an 11-day trip through the canyon. We chose Colorado River and Trail Expeditions, a small family-owned rafting company. The guides were well-educated, polite, friendly, and added greatly to the enjoyment of the trip. The passengers helped set up camp each evening, doing such jobs as helping unload the rafts and setting up serving tables and lawn chairs.

FOOD

The guides did everything else, including providing hot meals for breakfast and dinner and laying out a make-your-own sandwich spread for lunch. Steaks, lasagna, salmon, French toast, bacon and eggs, cheesecake, and white cake were among the many items served. If you liked the hot oatmeal served at one breakfast, you would consider all of the meals delicious. Fortunately, they provided plenty of brown sugar for the oatmeal.

THE TRIP

For our trip, we started with seven guides and 13 passengers. At the halfway point at Phantom Ranch, four hiked out and six hiked in, so for the second half of our trip we had 15 passengers. Each oar boat had two or three passengers, and the paddleboat had six or seven passengers and one guide.

We started at Lees Ferry at mile marker zero and floated to Whitmore Wash at mile marker 188 where we were picked up by helicopter, flown to Bar 10 Ranch, and then flown by chartered commuter airline to Las Vegas.

We always thought a trip through the Grand Canyon would be about whitewater rafting but that turned out not to be the case. It was about the canyon. There were plenty of rapids, an average of about one every three miles, but it was anything but boring in between. The scenery was breathtaking. There were no distractions from cell phones, television, radio, or traffic noise. There was nothing to do in the evenings but enjoy the companionship of the other passengers in delightful conversation. We would sit along the river and just relax.

It was hot in the canyon, but in the rafts you would always be wet from the rapids. If for some reason you were dry, you simply dipped your helmet in the river and put it back on. The water was 45 degrees where we started and warmed up to 55 degrees by the end of the trip. We bathed in the river but didn’t take long. At night we slept under the stars without tents.

THE SCENERY

As a person always on the go, I wasn’t sure I would be able to shut down for almost two weeks. Once in the Grand Canyon, I was totally relaxed.

Each day was different. On many days we hiked into a side canyon. Waterfalls were everywhere. Some were more than 100 feet high. In many, we stood in the middle and let the water cascade down over us. Some were in a series with waterfall after waterfall. At one especially inspiring place called Thunder River, the water came out of the side of the canyon into a pool.

On the ninth day, it rained. While rain could put a damper on most vacations, it was a thrill to experience rain in the Grand Canyon. In Indiana, the ground absorbs much of the rain, but it’s different in the canyon. Within minutes after the rain started, water came cascading down from the canyon rim. Some would fall hundreds of feet and seem to evaporate in a mist. Some combined to form larger streams that ended with a powerful waterfall into the Colorado River. During the heavier part of the rain, Zak, the head guide, found a rock outcropping where we found shelter and stood in awe of the sights around us.

DON’T MISS

For the first nine days of the trip, the guides kept talking about Lava Falls Rapids, the largest on the trip. People had rotated in and out of the paddle boat for the entire trip, and Ellie and I thought we would not be able to board for the Lava Falls trip. On the morning of the day we were to pass through Lava Falls Rapids, many chose to ride in the safer oar boats, so both Ellie and I were able to experience the full power of the Colorado River.

Everyone should experience the Grand Canyon from the Colorado River. Standing at the top is amazing, but traversing the entire canyon is beyond words. Ellie and I don’t know what our next adventure will be, but it will be hard to top this trip.

From the Lafayette, Indiana Journal & Courier Online

New lottery replaces the up-to-10-year waiting list for Colorado River trips

Grand Canyon National Park on Oct. 1 will start taking applications for self-guided rafting permits on the Colorado River, using a new lottery that replaces a 26-year-old wait-list system.

The lottery will allocate permits for private trips as opposed to those run by commercial outfitters. Private, or noncommercial, trip permits, which have attracted more than 1,000 applicants a year, are among the most coveted and hardest to obtain in the national parks.

Whether the lottery will make the permits easier to obtain is debatable. But it may, at least, open the process to newcomers. It may also require applicants to use new strategies to maximize their chances of “winning.”

Here’s how it works, according to Steve Sullivan, permits program manager for the park:

- Apply for a permit — choosing up to five dates for trips next year — from Oct. 1 to 21.

- Pay a $25 nonrefundable application fee.

- The lottery will be held Oct. 23, and winners will be notified “shortly thereafter,” Sullivan said.

- Winners will pay a trip deposit of $200 to $400, depending on the number of participants in their group. The deposit will be applied to permit fees of $100 per participant, with the balance due 90 days before the launch.

For details on the lottery, visit www.nps.gov/grca and select “River Permits” or call (800) 959-9164.

Under the old permit system, which began in 1980, applicants for self-guided river trips paid $100 to be put on a wait list that had grown to more than 8,200 people by 2003, when the list was frozen. Some waited 10 years or more to obtain a permit, Sullivan said, adding that the system generated complaints.

The new system permits 503 launches per year for self-guided trips, compared with an average of 253 per year. Also permit dates are more spread out during the year. (Because some permits were assigned to people on the old wait list, only 197 launches are in the 2007 lottery.)

Next summer, commercial launches are expected to outnumber self-guided trips by more than 2 to 1. That’s a smaller ratio than in the past, but it’s still a sore point with four nonprofit environmental groups that sued the park service over the Colorado River Management Plan, which generated the lottery. The suit is pending.

The plan “continues the … commercialization of a proposed wilderness area,” said Tom Martin, co-director for one of the plaintiffs, River Runners for Wilderness in Boulder, Colo.

Defending the plan, Sullivan said, “We added launches whenever we could for noncommercial users while trying not to hurt commercial users. It was a balancing act.”

But Martin said the likelihood of obtaining a permit under the new lottery is “as good as being hit by lightning.”

Sullivan said the chances were unknown “because we’ve never done this before.” Applicants may have a better chance under the lottery because they will compete for specific dates, not for the whole year, as they did under the old system, he said.

For applicants, here’s a tip: Spread your dates out, and consider less popular times, such as fall or winter, when fewer people are likely to apply.

Jane Engle, Los Angeles Times, Saturday, September 30, 2006

Question: My husband and I would like to take a whitewater rafting trip through the Grand Canyon. Any advice on short hikes and travel, including a scenic flight to/from Las Vegas?

Arizona Travel says: When it comes to raft trips down the Grand Canyon’s Colorado River, ask yourself whether you want to go by arm or engine? “There are two ways to experience the Grand Canyon,” says Steve Markle, the marketing director of OARS (800-346-6277, www.oars.com), which organizes canyon trips, “by motored raft or oar-powered raft.”

Consider not only your fitness level but also your expectations. For the motorized trips, travelers spend six to eight days in a 34- or 38-foot pontoon boat and ride the rapids along the entire 280-mile canyon route, from Lees Ferry to Whitmore Wash or Lake Mead. The boats fit eight to 16 people and carry camping and cooking gear. Because of the long distance, though, most of the trip is spent on the water, with fewer hiking opportunities.

By comparison, an oar-powered 17-foot dory or 18-foot inflatable raft goes much slower, taking two weeks or more to complete the river run. However, companies offer shorter excursions, such as a six-day trip from Lees Ferry to Phantom Ranch. These trips include treks into areas inaccessible from the more crowded rims, with visits to waterfalls, swimming holes, and the like. “You can’t see the whole canyon,” says Markle, “but your canyon experience is much more in-depth.” In addition, some expeditions pair the rafting with a nine-mile hike into the canyon and a helicopter ride out.

As for air tours, physical ability level is usually unrestricted. Take a helicpoter or airplane tour originating from Las Vegas, Flagstaff, Williams, Phoenix/Scottsdale or Sedona. Seeing the Grand Canyon by air will truly take your breath away. The views are spectacular…beyond compare. You can even enjoy an exhilarating Grand Canyon helicopter tour that lands deep in the Canyon. Whether by Grand Canyon helicopter or airplane, be sure to see the Grand Canyon by air…and let your dreams take flight.

The park caps the number of rafting trips allowed a year, and many companies sell out a year in advance. Markle recommends placing your name on a wait list, since people often cancel at the last minute and spaces open up. He adds that September and October are more readily available on short notice. Air tours can be booked about a month out, with some companies offering last-minute bookings. For more information on seeing the Grand Canyon by river, by air or by land, check out thecanyon.com.

More people will be able to raft the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon each year under a new management plan adopted by the U.S. National Park Service.More rafters will be shifted to fall, winter and spring months while the number of daily summertime launches of both motorized and non-motorized commercial rafts will decrease.

While rafters will be spread out over more of the year, they will travel in smaller groups. The net result will be more tourists overall.

The new plan also eliminates the existing waiting list for those who want to raft the river in non-commercial boats, replacing it with a lottery system.

The lower Colorado River, from Diamond Creek to Lake Mead, will see pontoon boat tours go up, allowing up to 480 passengers per day, up from between 130 and 188 passengers, depending on the time of year.

The plan bans jet boat tours entirely, but commercial operators that use the craft to meet rafts above Lake Mead would still be allowed.

The plan is being criticized by Living Rivers, a river restoration group, which feels motorized boats should have been banned entirely.

© The Edmonton Journal 2006
The Edmonton Journal, Published: Saturday, April 15, 2006